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Whatever one intends, the work takes on a life of its own.

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
Life
Intends
Takes
Whatever
Work

More quotes by Ann Beattie

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I must say also that it's never worked to my disadvantage that I have long, blond hair.
Ann Beattie
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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.
Ann Beattie
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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.
Ann Beattie
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It's gratifying that it does I love to give readings.
Ann Beattie
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If you could have a book called My Favorite Six Stories, I don't think I'd have trouble doing that.
Ann Beattie
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I've spent my life supporting myself.
Ann Beattie
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I am not alone in bearing grudges against reviewers who have doomed a book's chances because they've missed the point, the tone, everything.
Ann Beattie
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I don't even correct people when they mispronounce my name now.
Ann Beattie
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I think I write about things that are mysterious to me.
Ann Beattie
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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
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People forget years and remember moments.
Ann Beattie
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Any life will seem dramatic if you omit mention of most of it.
Ann Beattie
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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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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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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
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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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Clichés so often befall vain people.
Ann Beattie
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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.
Ann Beattie
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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.
Ann Beattie
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the real killer was when you married the wrong person but had the right children.
Ann Beattie