Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ann Beattie
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: September 8
Novelist
Professor
Short Story Writer
Writer
Washington
District of Columbia
Boring
Order
Seems
Problem
Speculating
Reason
Examining
Every
Diaries
Journal
Cosmic

More quotes by Ann Beattie

Image
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
Image
Clouds are poems, and the most moving poems linger on the blackboard so long, written in cursive so lovely, they also exist inside our fingertips. We never really erase them at the end of the lesson.
Ann Beattie
Image
the real killer was when you married the wrong person but had the right children.
Ann Beattie
Image
It's often been said that I'm an extremely depressing, cynical writer. I've never known what to make of that.
Ann Beattie
Image
I don't even correct people when they mispronounce my name now.
Ann Beattie
Image
Italics provide a wonderful advantage: you see, right away, that the words are in a rush. When something exists at a slant, you can't help but consider irony.
Ann Beattie
Image
Nobody can assume that, to a writer, everything is off-limits.
Ann Beattie
Image
People forget years and remember moments.
Ann Beattie
Image
Women are obviously much more discriminated against than men in many ways.
Ann Beattie
Image
While I would agree that I write about serious subjects, and that they're not necessarily the most pleasant subjects or even the most pleasant people, as a writer I just think about the humorous aspects of these things - that's what keeps me going when I'm writing a story.
Ann Beattie
Image
Whatever one intends, the work takes on a life of its own.
Ann Beattie
Image
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
Image
It's gratifying that it does I love to give readings.
Ann Beattie
Image
The admiration of another writer’s work is almost in inverse proportion to similarities in style.
Ann Beattie
Image
You put a character out there and you're in their power. You're in trouble if they're in yours.
Ann Beattie
Image
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
Image
When I was teaching at Harvard in the 1970s, I went to Project Incorporated in Cambridge and took photography classes. I didn't even know how to aim the camera in those days.
Ann Beattie
Image
I've spent my life supporting myself.
Ann Beattie
Image
Any life will seem dramatic if you omit mention of most of it.
Ann Beattie
Image
I could name a few songs and say exactly what summer they came out and what boy I thought I was in love with when I was fourteen years old, but I think that music used to be really more a part of the culture when people went out dancing in a different way than they do now.
Ann Beattie