Alice McDermott

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.

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.

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.

I've learned that even the word 'jubilee' used in connection with the Reformation can give rise to discussions.

Golf without bunkers and hazards would be tame and monotonous. So would life.

I've always been very determined, ever since I was a little girl, to make my way.