children’s writing is so often so beautiful, because it’s so close to their own true tongues. On the other hand, it’s very boring because they have n… - Grace Paley

I'd been writing poetry until about 1956, and then I just sort of made up my mind that I had to write stories. I love the whole tradition of poetry, but I couldn't figure out a way to use my own Bronx English tongue in poems. I can now, better, but those early poems were all very literary; they picked up after whatever poet I was reading. They used what I think of as only one ear: you have two ears, one is for the sound of literature and the other is for your neighborhood, for your mother and father's house. (1982)

(Why didn't you stick with poetry?) GP: I write a lot of poetry. I just never get good. Poetry is too literary a thing which comes from my love of literature rather than from my love of people, my feeling for people. (1980)

you can only teach learners. You can’t teach any subject to anybody who isn’t there to want to know.