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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.
Ann Patchett
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Ann Patchett
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: November 2
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More quotes by Ann Patchett
shame should be reserved for the things we choose to do, not the circumstances that life puts on us
Ann Patchett
I don't write for an audience, I don't think whether my book will sell, I don't sell it before I finish writing it.
Ann Patchett
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.
Ann Patchett
That's one of the many things about having the bookstore that I adore. I can walk into the store and say to somebody, I'm glad you're reading this book or I'm glad you're getting this book or Don't get that book. I read that book and hated that book. Let's get you this book instead.
Ann Patchett
I don't really do anything with the Internet except check my email. I have a much higher opinion of humanity because of that.
Ann Patchett
Fiction is always really a labor.
Ann Patchett
I craft everything in the beginning. I know where the characters are going before I start writing the book.
Ann Patchett
Thank God Roxane Coss had not fallen in love with one of the Russians. She doubted they could make it up the stairs without stopping for a cigarette and telling at least one loud story that no one could understand.
Ann Patchett
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
I could teach. I could wait tables. I could cook in a restaurant. Food and teaching were the two skills I had.
Ann Patchett
When well told, a story captured the subtle movement of change. If a novel was a map of a country, a story was the bright silver pin that marked the crossroads.
Ann Patchett
Home, bed, sleep, mother--who knew more beautiful words than these?
Ann Patchett
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
He realized now he was only just beginning to see the full extent to which it was his destiny to follow, to walk blindly into fates he could never understand. In fate there was reward, in turning over one's heart to God there was a magnificence that lay beyond description. At the moment one is sure that all is lost, look at what is gained!
Ann Patchett
Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration?
Ann Patchett
I don't want to stand with somebody's praise.
Ann Patchett
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.
Ann Patchett
I love a large cast of characters. That's the way life is: it's flooded with people and we keep them all straight.
Ann Patchett
Updike and Bellow and Roth were my three favorite writers when I was young and throughout my life.
Ann Patchett
My writing process has changed because it's harder to find uninterrupted time.
Ann Patchett