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
Would
Materials
Quite
Reason
Exploration
Might
Explore
Come
Drawn
Different
Obviously
Writing
Material
Way
Expect

More quotes by Ann Beattie

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I've spent my life supporting myself.
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Falling in Place was meant to be very much rooted in a place and time, and music was a part of that.
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I don't even correct people when they mispronounce my name now.
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
Ann Beattie
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I must say also that it's never worked to my disadvantage that I have long, blond hair.
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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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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.
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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.
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What will happen can't be stopped. Aim for Grace.
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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.
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People forget years and remember moments.
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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.
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It's interesting, though, that in daily life, I think of myself as being relatively unobservant.
Ann Beattie
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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.
Ann Beattie
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I think I write about things that are mysterious to me.
Ann Beattie
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The admiration of another writer’s work is almost in inverse proportion to similarities in style.
Ann Beattie
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Nobody can assume that, to a writer, everything is off-limits.
Ann Beattie