Top 99 Mavis Quotes
#1. The late Mavis Gallant told the Paris Review that writing is like "a love affair: the beginning is the best part. I write every day. It is not a burden. It is the way I live.
Mavis Gallant
#2. Mavis' bear sailed through the air in Cassie's room, falling onto the bed. 'What's he in aid of?' 'He's reconnaissance expert. He wouldn't hear of me enterin' potential hostile ground without testin' for fire. Has his sacrifice been in vain?
Christine M. Knight
#3. I know. I've got to cover all the bases. I'm going to track down the people Mavis recognized at the victim's house, get statements. I've got to find a table dancer with a big dick and a tattoo." "The fun never ends." She nearly smiled. "I need to find people who
J.D. Robb
#4. I couldn't even picture Mavis's face anymore. It was sad. She was being erased. I wanted to put my finger on her forehead, but there was nothing there.
James Tate
#5. Might have to go to London," she murmured. "Huh. Wouldn't it be a kick in the head if I really did have to be out of the country hunting a criminal mastermind when Mavis goes into labor?"
"I, my ass. That goes to we or I'll hurt you
J.D. Robb
#6. I was asked to sing with Mavis Staples on a gospel compilation called 'Oh Happy Day.' And, you know, other than being totally intimidated at the prospect of singing with Mavis, I was honored. I don't really have much of a background in gospel music.
Patty Griffin
#7. Son, you've got a lot to learn about love. You think it's all passion and excitement? That is only a small piece. Real love requires strength of character and courage. I'm not yet sure you have either. Go find your father. Bring him to Fort Mavis. Show me I'm wrong about you. Mason
Ruth Cardello
#8. For some reason, I immediately thought about how my parents had always been especially fond of Mavis, and here was this moment when I understood exactly why: she was a good person. It felt so good to realize how smart my parents had been all along.
Mindy Kaling
#9. Little and then gone back. Miss Mavis hadn't turned up - and she didn't turn up. The stewardess began to look for her - she hadn't been seen on deck or in the saloon. Besides, she wasn't dressed - not to show herself; all her clothes were in her
Henry James
#10. What about your crepe?"
"Stuff It."
"She's crazy about you," Mavis commented.
"It's almost embarrassing, the way she fawns.
J.D. Robb
#11. (Mavis led Lorelei over to a shaded spot on the deck where a large pile of shirts, pants, and socks waited. From where she stood, it was a daunting task.)
How long have you been working on that? Just since the dawn of time, or eternally? (Lorelei)
Kinley MacGregor
#12. Some never participate. Life happens to them. They get by on little more than dumb persistence and resist with anger or violence all things that might lift them out of resentment-filled illusions of security.
-Alma Mavis Taraza
Frank Herbert
#13. It wasn't until I started to read short stories - by people like Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, John Updike ... Eudora Welty - that I became excited about the possibilities of writing.
Carol Windley
#14. The vicar's handshake was warm and reassuring, but shaking hands with Mavis was like clutching a bunch of dead twigs.
Victoria Twead
#15. My high-school a cappella teacher would embarrass me in front of the choir. 'Mavis, you're in the basement. Mavis, you're singing with the boys.' I said, 'Mr. Finch, my voice isn't soprano. I can't sing up there with the girls.' So I just got out of the choir.
Mavis Staples
#16. Even though Mavis was my secret friend, she is the only one I hope I see again. She's the only one I wonder about. I hope she wonders about me too.
Mindy Kaling
#17. Be who you were meant to be and not what you've allowed yourself to become, Kate said to Mavis as she wavered over following her dream.
from 'Lifesong
Christine M. Knight
#18. There are times when I swear that boy is as mature as an old man, and other times when he hasn't got the sense of a three-year-old babe. (Mavis)
Good Lord, Mavis. He is a grown man after all! (Alice)
Kinley MacGregor
#19. Today we learned the letter "v"! It's in all kinds of words! Like "very" and "value" and "waves"!" "That's great!" Mavis giggled. She hoped it would be a few more years before he stopped calling her "Mace.
Jennifer Carson
#20. To preserve itself, male dominance is obliged to prize competition and central control and to turn away from making adjustments to the constantly shifting, personal needs or the problems that relate to women and their children.
Mavis Haut
#21. All lives are interesting; no one life is more interesting than another. Its fascination depends on how much is revealed, and in what manner.
Mavis Gallant
#22. It was orbital, it was mag, it was beyond the ult.
J.D. Robb
#23. I write every day as a matter of course It is not a burden. It is the way I live.
Mavis Gallant
#24. If women who were free to speak did not speak, we might as well say to the entire world, 'No matter what you do to women, no one cares, just go right ahead.'
Mavis Leno
#25. I was not fortunate enough to run into Obama. We were at the same church per se, but I would never be there when he was there.
Mavis Staples
#26. 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.
Mavis Gallant
#28. I would get in fights a lot. My voice was so heavy, kids would say you sound like a boy, so I would start beating them up.
Mavis Staples
#29. I wanted to live in Paris and write nothing but fiction and be perfectly free. I had decided all this had to be settled by the time I was thirty, and so I gave up my job and moved to Paris at twenty-eight. I just held my breath and jumped. I didn't even look to see if there was water in the pool.
Mavis Gallant
#30. Writing is like a love affair: the beginning is the best part.
Mavis Gallant
#31. Spring had been the season for dying in the old days. Invalids who had struggled through the dark comfort of winter took fright as the night receded.
Mavis Gallant
#32. Our emotions are the continuous waves and undercurrents that enable us to flow but in some instances, when hold on to them, suppress them or repress them, or express the destructively, they disrupt the flow
Mavis Mazhura
#33. I feel so good singing songs that I sang with my father.
Mavis Staples
#34. Well Lord, I'm still on the case. I'm still doing what Dr. King and Pops want me to do. I'm still on that freedom highway, and I'm going to walk on it until Dr. King's dream is realized.
Mavis Staples
#35. I'm old enough to be Obama's grandmom. But I still like seeing good-looking things. Nothing wrong with that.
Mavis Staples
#37. My uncle was 16, in junior high, and he heard me singing and snatched me off the stage. I thought he was happy and was going to pat me on the head and say I was good. But he took me home and told my grandmother this youngin' was at school singing the blues.
Mavis Staples
#38. The devil ain't got no music. All music is God's music.
Mavis Staples
#39. I follow my orders without question, as a good soldier would. You ask the same from your soldiers.'
'No, I ask them to be good people. That way if they follow my orders, I will know I am doing the right thing.
Jennifer A. Nielsen
#40. If someone creates a Nobel Prize for Unsung Hero, my nominee will be the divorced single mother
E. Mavis Hetherington
#41. Emotions can either energise you or de-energise you
Mavis Mazhura
#42. Appeals to memory were never perfectly answered.
Mavis Gallant
#43. When I was 7, I wanted to be a jockey. My father told me women weren't allowed. I couldn't believe it. I was perfectly willing to fail on my own merits, but to be flunked at birth?
Mavis Leno
#44. 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.
Mavis Gallant
#45. The kids today have these fresh faces. It's like they're on pins and needles, waiting to see what I'm going to do. They've never seen me. In the 1960s, those were hippies. They were wired up already. The kids today know me because I've worked with Jeff Tweedy and other young producers.
Mavis Staples
#46. Converts have it soft," said Mary. "They come to it late, without ever having had the Devil under the bed. They sail in and admire the stained-glass windows. All the dirty work has been done.
Mavis Gallant
#47. Whenever somebody tells me they want me to stop singing, I'm gone.
Mavis Staples
#48. I'm singing these songs to inspire you, to keep you going, to lift you up and give you a reason to get up in the morning.
Mavis Staples
#49. I have often found that the best way to persuade anyone to do something they suspect is to explain that they really need not do it.
Mavis Doriel Hay
#50. She and Marie were Montreal girls, not trained to accompany heroes, or to hold out for dreams, but just to be patient.
Mavis Gallant
#51. She was a pretty girl, with a pointed face and blue-black hair. But she was an untidy, a dusty sort of girl, and you felt that in a few years something might go wrong; she might get swollen ankles or grow a mustache.
Mavis Gallant
#52. Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.
Mavis Gallant
#53. A short story is what you see when you look out of the window.
Mavis Gallant
#54. No one is as real to me as people in the novel. It grows like a living thing. When I realize they do not exist except in my mind I have a feeling of sadness, looking around for them, as if the half-empty cafe were a place I had once come to with friends who had all moved away.
Mavis Gallant
#55. If I wasn't my age, I would turn a flip. I would do some cartwheels. That's how I feel.
Mavis Staples
#56. Tenacity isn't just the most important thing, it's the only thing.
Mavis Leno
#57. A writer's life stands in relation to his work as a house does to a garden, related but distinct.
Mavis Gallant
#58. I started writing letters home to my mother, saying that I wanted to come home, grandma won't let me sing.
Mavis Staples
#59. Like his father, like Jules Renard, he had been carried along the slow, steady swindle of history and experience.
Mavis Gallant
#61. It's been an amazing life. It's really just been the most magical thing for me - and I have these musical friends from all walks of life.
Mavis Staples
#62. I can't be in your place as I don't have a fat, knocked-up ass to sit on. Yeah, you asked me for a major, and if you want to come through on it, you'll sit down, shut up, and let me work. Bitch.
J.D. Robb
#63. I won't wear rings and jewelry on the stage because I don't want you looking at my hands. I want you hearing what I'm saying.
Mavis Staples
#64. There is a term for people caught on a street crossing after the light has changed: "pedestrian-traffic residue".
Mavis Gallant
#65. Emotions can get in the way or get you on the way
Mavis Mazhura
#66. Success can only be measured in terms of distance traveled ...
Mavis Gallant
#67. I am not interested in theories, she had taught herself to say, for fear of being invaded by something other than a dream.
But she was not certain what she meant and not sure that it was true.
Mavis Gallant
#68. I have to pinch myself sometimes. It's unbelievable, but it's not. Because I know that this would not be happening if it hadn't been for Dr. Martin Luther King.
Mavis Staples
#70. My purpose: to lift your spirit and to motivate you.
Mavis Staples
#71. I never sang for a Grammy, for money, for fame. That's my whole purpose for singing: for people, for the fans.
Mavis Staples
#72. I don't know which way I'm going. My next CD might be country, might be Dylan, might be Mick Jagger. I don't know. I love a challenge.
Mavis Staples
#73. Finding love is a two-part process. The first part is to find the right person. The second part is to be the right person.
Mavis Leno
#75. I can't just turn over and sing disco or rock.
Mavis Staples
#76. I sang with my father for over 50 years, and now all of a sudden he's gone, and I just dropped out.
Mavis Staples
#77. We enjoyed the fact that we were called to the folk festivals and we got to know Joan Baez, Dylan. We were singing strictly gospel, but then after we started hearing songs that they would sing, we saw that those songs were very fitting for us because they were singing the truth, and truth is gospel.
Mavis Staples
#78. There's still injustice happening in my world. I sing my songs at concerts and I'm so grateful that the people are ready to hear them.
Mavis Staples
#79. I get my voice from my mother's side of the family. My mother and my grandmother both had strong voices.
Mavis Staples
#80. You
Roarke." Eyes watering, she reached for more tissue. "Jesus, Eve. Jesus Christ, you never sleep with anybody. And you're telling me you slept with Roarke?"
"That's not precisely accurate. We didn't sleep.
J.D. Robb
#81. Marie, now Mme. Driscoll, turned to Berthe and smiled, as she used to when they were children. Once again, the smile said, Have I done the right thing? Is this what you wanted? Yes, yes, said Berthe silently, but she went on crying.
Mavis Gallant
#82. Against the sustained tick of a watch, fiction takes the measure of a life, a season, a look exchanged, the turning point, desire as brief as a dream, the grief and terror that after childhood we cease to express.
Mavis Gallant
#83. We've had a great change. Dr King saw to that. I was so grateful to see the 'colored only' signs come off the water fountains and bathrooms in the south. But the struggle lives on.
Mavis Staples
#84. Decide what the rest of your life is to be. Whatever you are now, you might be forever.
Mavis Gallant
#85. There is a great feeling in a small venue, with the closeness of the people and the intimacy.
Mavis Staples
#86. Pops always taught us that family is the strongest unit in the world. If you stick with your family, nobody can break you, nobody can harm you. You'll always have your family.
Mavis Staples
#87. Since time immemorial any woman with half a brain has known that in the pursuit of romance she must hide it
Mavis Cheek
#88. [My father] had spent his own short time like a priest in charge of a relic, forever expecting the blessed blood to liquefy.
Mavis Gallant
#89. When I come out of my dressing room, I go to my heart and say a little prayer and go out on stage. There I am, coming to lift you up and to motivate you. I want to bring joy. It's gospel, and gospel is the truth. It's what I do. I'm going to bring you the truth and lift up your spirit.
Mavis Staples
#90. When problems arise, so do our emotions, based on our perception and associated feelings of whatever is going on
Mavis Mazhura
#91. I just had a wonderful life, and I couldn't ask for anything else.
Mavis Staples
#92. One day, when I was about eight years old, some kids pushed me on stage at school during a talent show because they knew I could sing.
Mavis Staples
#93. Like every other form of art, literature is no more and nothing less than a matter of life and death. The only question worth asking about a story - or a poem, or a piece of sculpture, or a new concert hall - is, Is it dead or alive?
Mavis Gallant
#94. Pops, he was a singer's singer. I loved to hear my father sing. He just was so laid-back and cool. I always wished I could sing like Pops.
Mavis Staples
#95. I've got to sing for Pops; I've got to keep my father's legacy alive because he started all of this. So I started calling people, and nobody would give me a chance, but I didn't let that stop me. I took money out the bank and I started making me a record, and I did it in this guy's basement.
Mavis Staples
#96. The older I get the more grateful I am not to be told how everything comes out.
Mavis Gallant
#97. If you don't get out among the people, how are you going to know what they need to hear about?
Mavis Staples
#98. There's a difference between silence meaning agreement and being silenced.
Mavis Leno
#99. The best music of my life I heard at my grandmother's church, this little wooden church up on a hill.
Mavis Staples
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