Quote

It's interesting, though, that in daily life, I think of myself as being relatively unobservant.

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
Relatively
Daily
Though
Interesting
Think
Thinking
Life
Unobservant

More quotes by Ann Beattie

Image
Whatever one intends, the work takes on a life of its own.
Ann Beattie
Image
I must say also that it's never worked to my disadvantage that I have long, blond hair.
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
I think that I'm serious, but I don't think that I'm inordinately bleak.
Ann Beattie
Image
Falling in Place was meant to be very much rooted in a place and time, and music was a part of that.
Ann Beattie
Image
Women are obviously much more discriminated against than men in many ways.
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
What will happen can't be stopped. Aim for Grace.
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
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
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 think I write about things that are mysterious to me.
Ann Beattie
Image
I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality.
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
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
the real killer was when you married the wrong person but had the right children.
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
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
If you could have a book called My Favorite Six Stories, I don't think I'd have trouble doing that.
Ann Beattie