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The hardest piece of nonfiction I ever wrote isn't anywhere close to the easiest piece of fiction I never wrote.

Ann Patchett

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Ann Patchett
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: November 2
Author
Novelist
Writer
LA
California
Hardest
Wrote
Piece
Close
Pieces
Fiction
Nonfiction
Ever
Easiest
Never
Anywhere

More quotes by Ann Patchett

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I certainly have written a lot about police in my life, and it's not only something that I know about, but always something that interests me.
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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.
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I'm very sentimental about lobsters. The last lobster I ate was the only lobster I cooked.
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I was always on time, I did my work to exact specifications, I spoke when spoken to.
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Guns are dangerous and damaging even when no one gets shot. They really do loom.
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Learn to write by writing
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Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined.
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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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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.
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I could teach. I could wait tables. I could cook in a restaurant. Food and teaching were the two skills I had.
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That's important to me, to recommend books.
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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.
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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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My writing process has changed because it's harder to find uninterrupted time.
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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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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.
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I don't believe in fate, as in, which I - as a Catholic, I think, sort of predestination. But I certainly believe in chance.
Ann Patchett
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You can't be a jerk in order to be a good writer.
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You can’t pick up and leave everything behind because there is too much sadness in the world and not enough places to go.
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I read books I hate all the time, and I don't mention them or talk about them.
Ann Patchett