Alice Mcdermott Quotes

Powerful Alice Mcdermott for Daily Growth

About Alice Mcdermott

Alice McDermott is an acclaimed American novelist known for her intricate storytelling and profound exploration of family, memory, and faith within the Irish-American experience. Born on July 17, 1954, in New York City, McDermott spent her childhood in the predominantly Irish-Catholic neighborhood of Lindenhurst on Long Island. This upbringing served as a significant influence on her writing, shaping the thematic elements that would come to define her literary career. McDermott attended Hofstra University and received her Master's degree from Brooklyn College before publishing her debut novel, "At Wedding with My Mother" (1975), while still in her twenties. The book, although later retracted by McDermott, showcased her ability to craft intricate narratives centered around the human condition. In 1982, McDermott published "A Bigamist's Daughter," which garnered praise from critics and readers alike. However, it was with "Charming Billy" (1998) that she truly gained widespread recognition, earning the National Book Award for Fiction in 1998. The novel follows a week in the life of a dying man, offering a poignant exploration of love, loss, and the passage of time. McDermott's subsequent works include "After This" (2006), "Someone" (2013), and "The Ninth Hour" (2017), all of which have received critical acclaim for their poetic prose, emotional depth, and intricate narratives. Her writing continues to explore the complexities of familial relationships and the ways in which memory shapes our understanding of ourselves and those around us. In addition to her work as a novelist, McDermott has taught creative writing at various institutions, including Johns Hopkins University, George Mason University, and the University of Virginia. Her contributions to literature have earned her numerous accolades and a dedicated readership that eagerly anticipates each new release.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"In a world that asks us to be strong and capable, there's nothing more terrifying than to be weak."

This quote by Alice McDermott highlights the societal pressure to be strong and competent, which can instill fear in individuals who perceive themselves as weak or vulnerable. The sentiment suggests that society often values strength over vulnerability, creating an environment where admitting weakness or needing help is seen as a sign of failure. This quote encourages empathy towards those struggling with perceived weaknesses, reminding us all that vulnerability is human and not a reflection of one's worth or ability.

"Love is the only thing we take with us when we leave this earthly place."

This quote by Alice McDermott suggests that love, more than any material possession or worldly achievement, is an enduring essence that transcends our physical existence on Earth. It signifies that love has a spiritual significance and survives death, serving as the most meaningful and lasting connection we can cultivate in life. In essence, it highlights love's unique ability to provide us with something profound and enduring beyond the temporal nature of our lives on this earthly plane.

"We can't choose who we love. We can only hope they love us back."

This quote highlights the inherent uncontrollable nature of feelings of love. It suggests that individuals often find themselves emotionally attracted to someone without the power to control who they feel this way about. The second part emphasizes the hope we have that those we love, in return, will also cherish us. It underscores the vulnerability and risk that comes with loving someone, as we can only pray for reciprocation.

"The heartbreak of love is the heartbreak of a million small deaths, a slow death that begins in the first moment and continues until the last."

This quote by Alice McDermott highlights the persistent sorrow inherent in love, not just in its dramatic peaks or valleys, but in the accumulation of countless minor moments that contribute to an ongoing sense of loss. It suggests that love is a journey marked by a series of small disappointments, disillusionments, and moments of misunderstanding, which collectively amount to a protracted form of grief. This slow, continuous heartbreak underscores the profound emotional investment we have in our relationships, and the potential for pain that comes with that vulnerability.

"We carry with us the love we have lost, but it no longer defines us."

This quote by Alice McDermott highlights that although past loves significantly impact our lives, their influence doesn't continue to define or limit our present identity. The memories of these deep affections remain within us, yet we evolve as individuals beyond the confines of those lost relationships. Essentially, we move on and grow, learning from our experiences while cherishing the love that once was.

I'm very conscious of trying to make something epic out of something small and ordinary.

- Alice McDermott

Small, Trying, Very, Epic

As a writer, you have to put yourself in service to the character, get behind their eyes by delineating the world where the character develops. You have to listen to the character and see him inside his certain world to know what conclusions he would draw.

- Alice McDermott

Eyes, Behind, Inside, Conclusions

A perfect poem you can't pin down and say, 'This is exactly what it meant to me.' It's not a self-help manual.

- Alice McDermott

Perfect, Say, Meant, Pin

I believed in fictional characters as if they were a part of real life. Poetry was important, too. My parents had memorized poems from their days attending school in New York City and loved reciting them. We all enjoyed listening to these poems and to music as well.

- Alice McDermott

City, New York City, Part, Fictional

After a long run of almost thirty years, you get to the point where you say, 'These are my concerns.' It's not so much this is what I set out to claim - it is a kind of refrain.

- Alice McDermott

Long, Run, Almost, Refrain

The language of the Catholic Church - the liturgy, the prayer, the gospels - was in many ways my first poetry.

- Alice McDermott

Prayer, Ways, Liturgy, Gospels

A tendency to make metaphorical connections is an occupational hazard for those of us who write.

- Alice McDermott

Tendency, Metaphorical, Occupational

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

- Alice McDermott

Am, Constantly, Cell, Eccentricity

I read a little bit of nonfiction and a lot of poetry. I think of poetry as my shot of whiskey when I don't have time to savor a whole bottle of wine.

- Alice McDermott

Think, I Think, Read, Nonfiction

I'm writing all the time. I tend to work on at least two books simultaneously. I'll spend time with one, and then I'll spend time with the other. Finishing takes whatever time it takes.

- Alice McDermott

Work, Other, Least, Simultaneously

I've always believed you go to literature to find the shared human experience, not the categorized human experience.

- Alice McDermott

Literature, Always, Shared, Categorized

I'm a coastal person. I grew up in Long Island and lived in San Diego. I felt landlocked in Pittsburgh. Psychically, it just wasn't the place for me.

- Alice McDermott

Pittsburgh, Long Island, San, Diego

Our task as fiction writers isn't just to report something that didn't really happen. We have to give what we write a sense of reality. The tool of our tradition is language.

- Alice McDermott

Give, Happen, Fiction, Report

My own 'sentimental favorite' is always the novel I haven't yet written - I suppose that's the one I consider my 'masterpiece' as well.

- Alice McDermott

Own, Always, My Own, Sentimental

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.

- Alice McDermott

Myself, More, About, Observed

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

- Alice McDermott

Fiction, Stumbling, Assumes, Fiction Writer

I think place and time for me is often a matter of convenience, something I can use to another end rather than something I'm trying to define because it's somehow fascinating to me in itself. It's more what the place can do for the larger goals I have for the work.

- Alice McDermott

I Think, Rather, Larger, Goals

I am not a theologian or a historian, and I feel no call to become a defender of the faith, so in my case, the search for what remains valuable focuses on language itself: Catholic prayer, ritual, the naming of things.

- Alice McDermott

Faith, Feel, Remains, Naming

Character is primary. What happens as far as plot and events is not as intriguing to me as what's happening inside this particular person.

- Alice McDermott

Intriguing, Particular, Primary

I've got to hear the rhythm of the sentences; I want the music of the prose. I want to see ordinary things transformed not by the circumstances in which I see them but by the language with which they're described. That's what I love when I read.

- Alice McDermott

Love, I See, Sentences, Transformed

In grammar school I read 'Act One' by Moss Hart, and being a playwright struck me as the most magical and romantic career anyone could have... But I never did write a play.

- Alice McDermott

Play, Career, Read, Struck

Publishing a short story can sometimes feel like shouting into the dark... your words come out, and then nothing... but I don't think that's why I tend to write novels rather than stories.

- Alice McDermott

Sometimes, Feel, Rather, Novels

I think it's handy for a dramatist of any sort, if I can call myself that, to make use of weddings and wakes, to make use of those moments and those rituals that cause us to pause and look back or look forward and understand that life has changed.

- Alice McDermott

Weddings, I Think, Use, Handy

You're a human being, and every time a list of prize nominations comes out and your name isn't on it, you do have that thumb-in-the-eye feeling.

- Alice McDermott

Human Being, Being, Your, Every Time

I guess I cringe when the discussion leads to, rather than books and sentences and characters and the stuff that writers are supposed to be concerned with, how to have an online presence and how many followers you have on Twitter. That stuff always makes me uncomfortable.

- Alice McDermott

Concerned, Rather, Sentences, Cringe

Right away I think of two books - 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Rebecca' - and of just sinking into them as a young reader. I think they must have appealed not just to my romantic adolescent soul, but I suppose there's also an appealing darkness in both of them.

- Alice McDermott

Young, Away, I Think, Right Away

It worries me that undergrads and high school students are forced into books they aren't ready for, like Faulkner's, and then they are afraid of putting their toes in the water again.

- Alice McDermott

Like, Putting, Forced, Faulkner

I was the youngest; I had two imperious older brothers - I didn't get to often complete sentences at the dinner table. So writing was a way of saying what nobody asked me to say.

- Alice McDermott

Brothers, Had, Sentences, Table

Much of my experience with language was formed in the church, which has an oral tradition. There are lots of repetitions in prayers and song refrains. There's a sense of incantation, that if you call not once and not twice but for a third time, the spirit appears.

- Alice McDermott

Language, Church, Appears, Formed

At the beginning of every semester, I ask my graduate students whether there is something I should read that will help me understand their work.

- Alice McDermott

Beginning, Will, Read, Semester

Some readers sort of suspect that you have another book that you didn't publish that has even more information in it. I think that readers sort of want to be taught something. They have this idea that there's a takeaway from a novel rather than just the being there, which I think is the great, great pleasure of reading.

- Alice McDermott

Some, I Think, Rather, Great Pleasure

I believe that the interior life is the same for all of us. And because they're steeped in faith, Irish-American Catholics are a people who have a language for the examined life.

- Alice McDermott

Catholics, I Believe That, Examined

Those of us who know the transporting wonder of a reading life know that it little matters where we are when we talk about books or meet authors or bemoan the state of publishing because when we read, we are always inside, sheltered in that interior room, that clean, well-lighted, timeless place that is the written word.

- Alice McDermott

Inside, About, Transporting, Authors

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.

- Alice McDermott

Love, Lose, Kind, Manipulate

Any adjective you put before the noun 'writer' is going to be limiting in some way. Whether it's feminist writer, Jewish writer, Russian writer, or whatever.

- Alice McDermott

Some, Before, Russian, Limiting

Family dynamics are true over time, across generations and different cultures.

- Alice McDermott

Over, Across, Dynamics, Different Cultures

I learned really early on that I had to treat it as if it were a real job. This might be my middle class background - the Irish work ethic, which isn't quite the same as the Protestant work ethic - but still, it's, 'Get a job and show up every day. Be there. And don't complain. Who do you think you are: you're nobody special; go to work.'

- Alice McDermott

Treat, Every Day, Irish, Middle Class

I think a misconception among many non-religious people is that anyone with a strong faith is, in all ways and at all times, blindly consistent, unwavering, unquestioning.

- Alice McDermott

Strong, Think, I Think, Blindly

I like that original romance of having a pen and a legal pad and going anywhere in the world and being able to write a novel with just those two things.

- Alice McDermott

Original, Romance, Having, Novel

I think 'Charming Billy' ultimately is a novel about faith and what we believe in and, above all, what we choose to believe in.

- Alice McDermott

Think, I Think, Billy, Novel

Loss is inevitable - you have to be blind or naive to think otherwise.

- Alice McDermott

Loss, Inevitable, Otherwise, Naive

My children have gone to Catholic school... Part of their whole education is talking about the inner life and looking at your life, even though you're only 15 or 16 - thinking about your mortality, thinking about the value of your life, thinking about your obligations.

- Alice McDermott

Education, Part, About, Catholic

All my friends had grandparents who had accents. I thought all grandparents were supposed to have accents. My friends were all second-generation, as I was.

- Alice McDermott

Thought, Grandparents, All My Friends

For immigrant generations especially, family is the first structure, or shelter, for a people who are in exile.

- Alice McDermott

Shelter, Generations, Exile, Structure

What interests me is whatever it is that allows the heart to continue to yearn for something the intelligence knows is impossible to have: a lost love, a shelter from life's blows, the return of a time past, even a connection to the dead.

- Alice McDermott

Love, Past, Shelter, Lost Love

Read everything. Write all the time. And if you can do anything else that gives you equal pleasure and allows you to sleep soundly at night, do that instead. The writing life is an odd one, to say the least.

- Alice McDermott

Night, Pleasure, Read, Odd

My parents were both first-generation Irish Catholics raised in Brooklyn.

- Alice McDermott

Brooklyn, Irish, Were, Catholics

I'm a novelist. I'm not a crusader, and I'm not an editorial writer. And I'm not writing fiction to convince anybody of anything.

- Alice McDermott

Fiction, Convince, Editorial, Novelist

No one looks at a baby and says, 'You are going to be a great novelist, and you really need to start writing now.' Something in us says: 'This is what I must do.'

- Alice McDermott

Start, Need, Going, Novelist

For me, having characters who are part of a faith then allows me to talk about how that faith either works or fails them without having to attack the institution.

- Alice McDermott

Part, Having, Works, Institution

I have not won far more awards than I have won.

- Alice McDermott

More, Won, Far, Awards

I know Irish-American people. I know what their homes look like. I know what they have for dinner. I know how they turn a phrase.

- Alice McDermott

How, Like, Phrase, Dinner

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

- Alice McDermott

Run, Memoir, Drawn, Risk

I do have friends in Pittsburgh, and I had some wonderful experiences there.

- Alice McDermott

Wonderful, Some, Had, Pittsburgh

I'm interested in characters who should know better, who know they should give up, move on, accept life as it is, with all its constraints - life, death, time - but don't.

- Alice McDermott

Death, Give, Move, Move On

I wouldn't want to tweet to anyone who would be interested in my tweets.

- Alice McDermott

Want, Would, Anyone, Tweet

I don't want to write about violence, and I don't want to hang a plot on a murder. I think it's cheap.

- Alice McDermott

Think, Hang, I Think, Violence

The thing that fiction can do is look from the inside out rather than from the outside in. Even memoir leaves me somewhat frustrated. I think now we need a poet to uncover what isn't on the surface.

- Alice McDermott

Think, Memoir, I Think, Uncover

Memory is not pure. Memories told are not pure memories; memories told are stories. The storyteller will change them. I've always been interested in that.

- Alice McDermott

Memory, Always, Been, Memories

I have a great fondness for the liars in my stories.

- Alice McDermott

Great, Stories, Fondness, Liars

Most of the characters I write with don't think an awful lot about their faith. They're not always questioning the church or feeling confined by the church or rebelling against the church.

- Alice McDermott

Think, Always, Awful Lot, Questioning

In the act of reading, especially reading fiction, where a world is being created, all kinds of matters of belief come into play.

- Alice McDermott

Play, Fiction, Created, Matters

I'm always telling my students, don't - don't worry so much third person, first person. It doesn't make that much difference.

- Alice McDermott

Worry, Always, Telling, Third

I was born in Brooklyn, but I never lived there.

- Alice McDermott

Never, Born, I Was Born, Brooklyn

Being Irish-American myself, Irish-American material is readily at hand to me.

- Alice McDermott

Myself, Me, Material, Readily

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