Quote

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

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Ann Patchett
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: November 2
Author
Novelist
Writer
LA
California
Turns
Discipline
Fact
Unless
Specimen
Facts
Stay
Butterfly
Hands
Bring
Regular
Dream
Head
Achieved
Something
Hand
Begins
Like
Forever
Distance
Practice
Tools

More quotes by Ann Patchett

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If you've had good gin on a hot day in Southern California with the people you love, you forget Nebraska. The two things cannot coexist. The stronger, better of the two wins.
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Keeping people safe is a story we tell ourselves.
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I will go and speak at rotary clubs. I will go and speak at schools. I'm so much in the community, but in a way that I love. It's been such a positive thing.
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I know that there are people out there who believe we should get rid of all guns.
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When you get divorced and remarried, nobody gets discarded. Everybody is still there. Even if their storyline is not directly yours.
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Time has a funny way of collapsing when you go back to a place you once loved. You find yourself thinking, I was kissed in that building, I climbed up that tree.
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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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Show kindness whenever possible. Show it to the people in front of you, the people coming up behind you, and the people with whom you are running neck and neck. It will vastly improve the quality of your own life, the lives of others, and the state of the world.
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I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing.
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The idea I pursue is the one that keeps coming back to me. The characters I think about as I'm falling asleep at night or when I'm driving to the grocery store are the one's I wind up writing about.
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Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft.
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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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I will write my way into another life.
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I should figure out why I'm so much more interested in doing something that I think is really hard. But, somehow, the thing that is hard for me feels more noble.
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I don't really do anything with the Internet except check my email. I have a much higher opinion of humanity because of that.
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Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.
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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.
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One must not be shy where language is concerned.
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When I wrote nonfiction, my best work was the really personal stuff.
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You should not have assault rifles in your home.
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