Quote

Praise and criticism seem to me to operate exactly on the same level. If you get a great review, it's really thrilling for about ten minutes. If you get a bad review, it's really crushing for ten minutes. Either way, you go on.

Ann Patchett

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ann Patchett
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: November 2
Author
Novelist
Writer
LA
California
Levels
Crush
Either
Ten
Seems
Criticism
Great
Praise
Crushing
Really
Exactly
Review
Way
Level
Thrilling
Seem
Operate
Minutes
Reviews

More quotes by Ann Patchett

Image
I know that there are people out there who believe we should get rid of all guns.
Ann Patchett
Image
Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.
Ann Patchett
Image
If I was a waitress, I was too tired at the end of the day when I came home to try to write.
Ann Patchett
Image
No one should have to go back to the place where she had once been a girl.
Ann Patchett
Image
Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.
Ann Patchett
Image
If what a person wants is his life, he tends to be quiet about wanting anything else. Once the life begins to seem secure, one feels the freedom to complain.
Ann Patchett
Image
You can't be a good person when you're writing and a bad person to your husband or a bad friend.
Ann Patchett
Image
Some people need a huge amount of attention, and they are worthy of that attention, and they're still exhausting.
Ann Patchett
Image
I was always on time, I did my work to exact specifications, I spoke when spoken to.
Ann Patchett
Image
If you want to write and can't figure out how to do it, try this: Pick an amount of time to sit at your desk every day. Start with twenty minutes, say, and work up as quickly as possible to as much time as you can spare. Do you really want to write? Sit for two hours a day.
Ann Patchett
Image
I am sure every writer has this and probably every newscaster, that people are always coming up to me and saying, my daughter wants to do what you do, my godson, my tennis partner.
Ann Patchett
Image
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.
Ann Patchett
Image
The quality of gifts depends on the sincerity of the giver.
Ann Patchett
Image
Our friendship was like our writing in some ways. It was the only thing that was interesting about our otherwise dull lives. We were better off when we were together. Together we were a small society of ambition and high ideals. We were tender and patient and kind. We were not like the world at all.
Ann Patchett
Image
That was the way things worked. When you were looking for the big fight, the moment that you thought would knock everything over, nothing much happened at all.
Ann Patchett
Image
I believe, in my better moments, that there is a plan and things go not the way we want them to but the way they should.
Ann Patchett
Image
I am not mature enough as a reader to enjoy a book in which I hate all the people.
Ann Patchett
Image
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.
Ann Patchett
Image
You can’t control what other people think about your art. Think about the part of yourself that you can control, which is your ability to be kind and loving and creative.
Ann Patchett
Image
It turns out that the distance from head to hand, from wafting butterfly to entomological specimen, is achieved through regular practice. What begins as something like a dream will in fact stay a dream forever unless you have the tools and the discipline to bring it out.
Ann Patchett