Quotes from Ellen Gilchrist

In the schools of small Midwestern towns, the only aristocracies are of beauty, intelligence, and athletic prowess.

I can't conceive of nursing babies and taking care of children and writing, too. I know there are writers that do that, but I'm too single-minded. I can't stand to be interrupted, whether I'm writing a story or dressing a child.

I love 'E.R.' and I'm not ashamed to admit it. It makes me know I did not waste my life after all by not becoming a medical doctor.

Having your work honored nationally is a great morale booster.

Don't ruin the present with the ruined past.

At one level inspiration is the ability to see beauty and mystery in everything men and women do.

My ancestors are Highland Scots, and my father's home in north Alabama is so much like northwest Arkansas. I have the same allergies in both places.

I never thought it was unusual to write, and I've been writing or pretending to write since before I even started school.

One of the reasons I am happy now is that I did the work I had always dreamed of doing. But I didn't start doing it seriously and professionally until I was forty years old.

Work is the thing that stays. Work is the thing that sees us through.

Family and work. Family and work. I can let them be at war, with guilt as their nuclear weapon and mutually assured destruction as their aim, or I can let them nourish each other.

I love New York, but I wish they wouldn't put clothes on their dogs.