[My father] had spent his own short time like a priest in charge of a relic, forever expecting the blessed blood to liquefy.
Mavis GallantAgainst the sustained tick of a watch, fiction takes the measure of a life, a season, a look exchanged, the turning point, desire as brief as a dream, the grief and terror that after childhood we cease to express.
Mavis GallantA writer's life stands in relation to his work as a house does to a garden, related but distinct.
Mavis GallantLike every other form of art, literature is no more and nothing less than a matter of life and death. The only question worth asking about a story — or a poem, or a piece of sculpture, or a new concert hall — is, Is it dead or alive?
Mavis GallantThere is something I keep wanting to say about reading short stories. I am doing it now, because I many never have another occasion. Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.
Mavis Gallant