Quote

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

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
Stories
Visuals
Character
Visual
Going
Atmosphere
Way
Characters
Always
Gets
Think
Almost
Thinking
Story
People
Around
Imagery

More quotes by 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
Any life will seem dramatic if you omit mention of most of it.
Ann Beattie
Image
Also minimalism is a term that all of us who share so little in common and who are lumped together as minimalists are not terribly happy with.
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
If you could have a book called My Favorite Six Stories, I don't think I'd have trouble doing that.
Ann Beattie
Image
I must say also that it's never worked to my disadvantage that I have long, blond hair.
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
I like a lot of Margaret Atwood, I like much of Alice Munro. Again, if you were to ask me about male writers, there's often a novel I admire, but not all of their works.
Ann Beattie
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I think I write about things that are mysterious to me.
Ann Beattie
Image
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
Image
I think that I'm serious, but I don't think that I'm inordinately bleak.
Ann Beattie
Image
People forget years and remember moments.
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 interesting, though, that in daily life, I think of myself as being relatively unobservant.
Ann Beattie
Image
the real killer was when you married the wrong person but had the right children.
Ann Beattie
Image
There is some reason, obviously, that you are drawn to your material, but the way in which you explore it might come to be quite different from what you would expect.
Ann Beattie
Image
Clichés so often befall vain people.
Ann Beattie
Image
What will happen can't be stopped. Aim for Grace.
Ann Beattie