Quotes By Joyce Maynard
At Home in the World is the story of a young woman, raised in some difficult circumstances, and how she survives. It tells a story of redemption, not victimhood.
Joyce Maynard
I believed my story would be helpful to young women my daughter's age, who are still in the process of forming themselves as women, and in need of encouragement to remain true to themselves.
Joyce Maynard
Growing up in the fifties and sixties, I can only remember knowing one child, ever, whose parents got a divorce, and hardly any whose mother 'worked' at anything besides raising her children.
Joyce Maynard
Some literary types subscribe to the notion that being a writer like Salinger entitles a person to remain free of the standards that might apply to mere mortals.
Joyce Maynard
Many women my age have known the experience of giving up crucial parts of themselves to please the man they love.
Joyce Maynard
I have long observed that the act of writing is viewed, by some, as an elite and otherworldly act, all the more so if a person isn't paid for what she writes.
Joyce Maynard
For 25 years, I did take my responsibilities as a pleaser of others sufficiently seriously.
Joyce Maynard
Although Salinger had long since cut me out of his life completely and made it plain that he had nothing but contempt for me, the thought of becoming the object of his wrath was more than I felt ready to take on.
Joyce Maynard
More than any other setting - more than battlefields or boardrooms or a spaceship headed for intergalactic travel - I'll put my money on the family to provide an endless source of comedy, tragedy and intrigue.
Joyce Maynard
The painter who feels obligated to depict his subjects as uniformly beautiful or handsome and without flaws will fall short of making art.
Joyce Maynard
Women writers have been told, forever, that our stories were not valuable. Not as valuable as men's stories about wars, business, power.
Joyce Maynard
Nothing like being visible, publishing one's work, and speaking openly about one's life, to disabuse the world of the illusion of one's perfection and purity.
Joyce Maynard
A good home must be made, not bought. In the end, it's not track lighting or a sun room that brings light into a kitchen.
Joyce Maynard
If a man wishes to truly not be written about, he would do well not to write letters to 18-year-old girls, inviting them into his life.
Joyce Maynard
I was giving a speech one time, and the woman who introduced me said, 'Well, she used to be J. D. Salinger's girlfriend. I thought, 'God, is that all I've been?' I didn't want to be reduced to that.
Joyce Maynard
When people ask what I write about, that's what I tell them: 'The drama of human relationships.' I'm not even close to running out of material.
Joyce Maynard
If people choose to live their life in a way that does not confront the more troubling aspects of their experience, that's fine, if it works for them. But it will probably make them uncomfortable if they come up against somebody like me. So they just shouldn't! They shouldn't read my work!
Joyce Maynard
To share our stories is not only a worthwhile endeavor for the storyteller, but for those who hear our stories and feel less alone because of it.
Joyce Maynard
When I was 12 years old, I read 'Nancy Drew' mysteries and biographies of Madame Curie and Florence Nightingale and books about girls who love horses or go to nursing school. I belonged to the Girl Scouts and got A's in school and rarely disobeyed my parents. I still kept a collection of Barbie dolls in my room, and I almost never spoke to boys.
Joyce Maynard
Teach a child to play solitaire, and she'll be able to entertain herself when there's no one around. Teach her tennis, and she'll know what to do when she's on a court. But raise her to feel comfortable in nature, and the whole planet is her home.
Joyce Maynard
The vehemence with which certain critics have chosen not simply to criticize what I've written, but to challenge my writing this story at all, speaks of what the book is about: fear of disapproval.
Joyce Maynard