Here I am in the garden laughing an old woman with heavy breasts and a nicely mapped face how did this happen well that's who I wanted to be at last a woman in the old style sitting stout thighs apart under a big skirt grandchild sliding on off my lap a pleasant summer perspiration that's my old man across the yard he's talking to the meter reader he's telling him the world's sad story how electricity is oil or uranium and so forth I tell my grandson run over to your grandpa ask him to sit beside me for a minute I am suddenly exhausted by my desire to kiss his sweet explaining lips.
Grace PaleyI liked the education. I liked people learning things all around me and I liked going to people's classes.
Grace PaleyA lot of sad things have happened to my friends' children, people you knew as babies. They've been killed or become crazy or all kinds of tragic things. There are some people whose children haven't talked to them in fifteen years. There's all kind of meshugaas in this world.
Grace PaleyI begin by writing paragraphs that donโt have an immediate relation to a plot. The sound of the story comes first.
Grace PaleyThe women's movement was coming, but I didn't know it in 1956-1957, when I began to write.
Grace Paley