Quote

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

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Ann Beattie
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: September 8
Novelist
Professor
Short Story Writer
Writer
Washington
District of Columbia
Way
Expect
Would
Materials
Quite
Reason
Exploration
Might
Explore
Come
Drawn
Different
Obviously
Writing
Material

More quotes by Ann Beattie

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I think that I'm serious, but I don't think that I'm inordinately bleak.
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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.
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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.
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Whatever one intends, the work takes on a life of its own.
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I think I write about things that are mysterious to me.
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People forget years and remember moments.
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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.
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the real killer was when you married the wrong person but had the right children.
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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.
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Nobody can assume that, to a writer, everything is off-limits.
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It's interesting, though, that in daily life, I think of myself as being relatively unobservant.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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I've spent my life supporting myself.
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Women are obviously much more discriminated against than men in many ways.
Ann Beattie
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What will happen can't be stopped. Aim for Grace.
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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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It's gratifying that it does I love to give readings.
Ann Beattie