Quote

Carmen prayed hard. She prayed while standing near the priest in hopes it would give her request extra credibility. What she prayed for was nothing. She prayed that God would look on them and see the beauty of their existence and leave them alone.

Ann Patchett

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Ann Patchett
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: November 2
Author
Novelist
Writer
LA
California
Look
Hopes
Carmen
Nothing
Near
Prayed
Looks
Standing
Priest
Hard
Leave
Request
Giving
Existence
Credibility
Would
Alone
Extra
Beauty
Extras
Give
Priests

More quotes by Ann Patchett

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You can't be a good person when you're writing and a bad person to your husband or a bad friend.
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Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected, how one decision leads you another, how one twist of fate, good or bad, brings you to a door that later takes you to another door, which aided by several detours--long hallways and unforeseen stairwells--eventually puts you in the place you are now.
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When I wrote nonfiction, my best work was the really personal stuff.
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I used to do everything to keep a wall up around myself and keep my life quiet so that I could write.
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There can be something cruel about people who have had good fortune. They equate it with personal goodness.
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You can't always trust what you think, what you know ... but you can always trust your nature.
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I made a startling discovery. Time spent writing = output of work. Amazing.
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Seeing images of violence - it's always about how somebody's going to kill you.
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Everybody believes in chance.
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You can't be a jerk in order to be a good writer.
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People gave me such a bad time about wanting a baby. I didn't want a baby, and I still don't. I wanted a dog.
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Some people need a huge amount of attention, and they are worthy of that attention, and they're still exhausting.
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I have seven step-siblings from my mother's second and third marriages. My degree of closeness to my step-siblings varies among the seven but I have a great sense of loyalty to all of them, especially the four from my childhood. If those people needed my help I would be there for them.
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shame should be reserved for the things we choose to do, not the circumstances that life puts on us
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People always say, Can writing be taught? I always think, I can teach you how to write a better sentence, how to do dialogue, how to do character, but I can't teach you how to be a decent person, and I can't teach you how to have something to say.
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If anybody had shown me the paperwork for how my life was going to look in five years, I would have said, No. That is not where I want to go.
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I'm very comfortable writing.
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If I was a waitress, I was too tired at the end of the day when I came home to try to write.
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I was very influenced by The Magic Mountain. It's a book that had a huge impact on me. I loved that as a shape for a novel: put a bunch of people in a beautiful place, give them all tuberculosis, make them all stay in a fur sleeping bag for several years and see what happens.
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Updike and Bellow and Roth were my three favorite writers when I was young and throughout my life.
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