Mavis Gallant
Mavis Gallant
Mavis Leslie de Trafford Gallant, CC, née Young, was a Canadian writer who spent much of her life and career in France. Best known as a short story writer, she also published novels, plays and essays...
characters closer consists fiction fixed flash frame freeze image showing simple slide
The first flash of fiction arrives without words. It consists of a fixed image like a slide or closer still a freeze frame showing characters in a simple situation....
camps full goes life loaded seldom
She had the loaded handbag of someone who camps out and seldom goes home, or who imagines life must be full of emergencies.
interesting fascination life-is
All lives are interesting; no one life is more interesting than another. Its fascination depends on how much is revealed, and in what manner.
forever rest-of-your-life might
Decide what the rest of your life is to be. Whatever you are now, you might be forever.
distance aging term
Success can only be measured in terms of distance traveled...
stories looks window
A short story is what you see when you look out of the window.
writing affair love-affair
Writing is like a love affair: the beginning is the best part.
father blessed blood
[My father] had spent his own short time like a priest in charge of a relic, forever expecting the blessed blood to liquefy.
notebook writing way
I believed that if I was to call myself a writer, I should live on writing. If I could not live on it, even simply, I should destroy every scrap, every trace, every notebook and live some other way.
people half world
There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble.
dream father writing
I began to ration my writing, for fear I would dream through life as my father had done. I was afraid I had inherited a poisoned gene from him, a vocation without a gift.
writing garden house
A writer's life stands in relation to his work as a house does to a garden, related but distinct.
girl patience dream
She and Marie were Montreal girls, not trained to accompany heroes, or to hold out for dreams, but just to be patient.
writing matter way
I write every day as a matter of course It is not a burden. It is the way I live.