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

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

More quotes by Ann Beattie

Image
the real killer was when you married the wrong person but had the right children.
Ann Beattie
Image
I've spent my life supporting myself.
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
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
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
What will happen can't be stopped. Aim for Grace.
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 don't even correct people when they mispronounce my name now.
Ann Beattie
Image
Clichés so often befall vain people.
Ann Beattie
Image
People forget years and remember moments.
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
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 must say also that it's never worked to my disadvantage that I have long, blond hair.
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
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
I think that I'm serious, but I don't think that I'm inordinately bleak.
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 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
Image
I think I write about things that are mysterious to me.
Ann Beattie
Image
It's interesting, though, that in daily life, I think of myself as being relatively unobservant.
Ann Beattie