"Mavis Leslie de Trafford Gallant", , née "Young" was a Canada/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.

If you enjoy these quotes, be sure to check out other famous writers! More Mavis Gallant on Wikipedia.

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.

201

[My father] had spent his own short time like a priest in charge of a relic, forever expecting the blessed blood to liquefy.

172

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....

94