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Clichés so often befall vain people.

Ann Beattie

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Ann Beattie
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: September 8
Novelist
Professor
Short Story Writer
Writer
Washington
District of Columbia
Befall
Clich
Vain
Often
People

More quotes by Ann Beattie

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If you could have a book called My Favorite Six Stories, I don't think I'd have trouble doing that.
Ann Beattie
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It's often been said that I'm an extremely depressing, cynical writer. I've never known what to make of that.
Ann Beattie
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Because I don’t work with an outline, writing a story is like crossing a stream, now I’m on this rock, now I’m on this rock, now I’m on this rock.
Ann Beattie
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I am not alone in bearing grudges against reviewers who have doomed a book's chances because they've missed the point, the tone, everything.
Ann Beattie
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Whatever one intends, the work takes on a life of its own.
Ann Beattie
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I've spent my life supporting myself.
Ann Beattie
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Nobody can assume that, to a writer, everything is off-limits.
Ann Beattie
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People forget years and remember moments.
Ann Beattie
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You put a character out there and you're in their power. You're in trouble if they're in yours.
Ann Beattie
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It seems to me that the problem with diaries, and the reason that most of them are so boring, is that every day we vacillate between examining our hangnails and speculating on cosmic order.
Ann Beattie
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It's not about having things figured out, or about communicating with other people, trying to make them understand what you understand. It's about a chicken dinner at a drive-in. A soft pillow. Things that don't need explaining.
Ann Beattie
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When I lived in New York, not only did I have safety locks on the door but I had the music going, keeping the city at a distance, trying to find creative time and peace and so forth.
Ann Beattie
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You have to figure out who the right person is to tell the story. And often, people who are very self-aware will only sound as if they are pontificating if they tell the story.
Ann Beattie
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Quite often my narrator or protagonist may be a man, but I'm not sure he's the more interesting character, or if the more complex character isn't the woman.
Ann Beattie
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It's gratifying that it does I love to give readings.
Ann Beattie
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I think almost always that what gets me going with a story is the atmosphere, the visual imagery, and then I people it with characters, not the other way around.
Ann Beattie
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What will happen can't be stopped. Aim for Grace.
Ann Beattie
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I don't even correct people when they mispronounce my name now.
Ann Beattie
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I must say also that it's never worked to my disadvantage that I have long, blond hair.
Ann Beattie
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Much of what happens in Love Always is really from overheard conversations in the Russian Tea Room. It's an improvisation of the way certain Hollywood agents think and talk to each other.
Ann Beattie