Quotes About Alice McDermott

I love a well-plotted story. But I'm just not that kind of writer, and it's not necessarily by choice. When I manipulate plot, I feel I lose authenticity.

Tom placed his beer on the glass-topped garden table. Were I to dream again, I would dream myself into this room, at this hour. I would take the fading cushion beside him.

Amadan." I said it as Pegeen had said it, ruefully, shaking my head as if speaking fondly of a troublesome child. I said it with my chin just above my own china cup and its dregs of melting sugar, with my eyes veering away from my brother's startled face and down into that ivory light. And then, for good measure, I said it again, into the teacup itself. "Amadan." The

And then the wind paused completely, as it will in April, a sudden silence and maybe even the hint of warmth from the sun, so

Why not?" but without conviction, confirming for them both that this was a sudden impulse that most likely would not last out the afternoon. "What if I come by at seven?" he said.

I'm not usually drawn to memoir - many run the risk of self-aggrandizement or score-settling.

Any fiction writer who assumes that a character is typical no doubt runs the risk of stumbling into cliche and stereotype.

I am trying to cultivate the notion that constantly misplacing one's cell phone is a charming eccentricity... my children aren't buying it.

I'm more interested in character than events. I've observed that about myself as a writer. I find events, even the most dramatic sort, not to be such fertile ground.