The best training is to read and write, no matter what. Don't live with a lover or roommate who doesn't respect your work. Don't lie, buy time, borrow to buy time. Write what will stop your breath if you don't write.
Grace PaleyRead
This hill crossed with broken pines and maples lumpy with the burial mounds of uprooted hemlocks (hurricane of '38) out of their rotting hearts generations rise trying once more to become the forest just beyond them tall enough to be called trees in their youth like aspen a bouquet of young beech is gathered they still wear last summer's leaves the lightest brown almost translucent how their stubbornness has decorated the winter woods.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the resilience of nature and the cycles of life amidst destruction.
In this quote, Grace Paley poetically illustrates the enduring spirit of nature as it recovers from adversity. She observes the remnants of trees and the new generation that rises from their decayed predecessors, symbolizing hope and renewal. The imagery evokes a sense of beauty in decay, highlighting how the natural world persists and thrives despite challenges, much like life itself.
Themes
NatureResilienceGrowthRenewalTreesCycles
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about environmental conservation, one might quote this to illustrate the importance of resilience in nature.
More from Grace Paley
All quotes →I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library. Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified. He said, What? What life? No life of mine.
Grace PaleyRead
…I go through a story for lies. I might discover the lie of trying to show off. Sometimes they’re lies of character. Sometimes they are lies of writing the most beautiful sentence in the world that has nothing to do with the story.
Grace PaleyRead
You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else.
Grace PaleyRead
I begin by writing paragraphs that don’t have an immediate relation to a plot. The sound of the story comes first.
Grace PaleyRead
Write what will stop your breath if you don’t write.
Grace PaleyRead
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For the economy itself will die if our ecosystems collapse.
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O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors: The north is thine; there hast thou build thy dark, Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs, Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.
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