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I think books in which people are really happy and things are going well are probably the most challenging novels there are to write, and there are very few of them.

Anna Quindlen

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Anna Quindlen
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: July 8
Author
Columnist
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Anna Marie Quindlen
Really
Books
Things
Happy
Think
Write
Thinking
Wells
Challenging
People
Book
Novels
Well
Novel
Writing
Challenges
Going
Probably

More quotes by Anna Quindlen

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I did not read from a sense of superiority, or advancement, or even learning. I read because I loved it more than any other activity on earth.
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My father really, really pushed me to excel in a way that I resented for years and then realized had really worked for me.
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I do tend to be almost kind of Pollyanna-ish person.
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Decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.
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I think I'm like most novelists in that my books have gotten farther and farther away from autobiography the longer I've been writing them.
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My most pronounced writing habit is trying not to write.
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The voices of conformity speak so loudly. Don't listen to them. No one does the right thing out of fear. If you ever utter the words, 'We've always done it that way,' I urge you to wash out your mouth with soap.
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Ethnic stereotypes are misshapen pearls, sometimes with a sandy grain of truth at their center. ... but they ignore complexity, change, and individuality.
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Frankly, I'm mainly telling the story to myself. Thinking about audience is too daunting, and worst case, invites you to homogenize, to soften the hard edges of things.
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I know a lot and have written a lot and have thought a lot about motherhood.
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I don't understand how people learn to live in the world if they haven't had siblings. Everything I learned about negotiation, territoriality, coexistence, dislike, inbred differences and love despite knowledge I learned from my four younger siblings.
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Writing seems to be the only profession people imagine you can do by thinking about doing it.
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I always wanted to be a fiction writer, but I couldn't figure out how you could be a novelist and make any money, which continues to be a problem for novelists the world over.
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Raising a child is a little like Picasso's work in the beginning he did very conventional representational things. Cubism came after he had the rules down pat.
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New York City has finally hired women to pick up the garbage, which makes sense to me, since, as I've discovered, a good bit of being a woman consists of picking up garbage.
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I really feel like I'm a liberal because I'm a Catholic, because I took the words of the New Testament to heart.
Anna Quindlen
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I'm very optimistic. I think if you would describe me, my pretty consistent affect is that I'm a pretty happy person.
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The problem with freedom is that you just can't go back. Once people see what it means to be free people, you can't go back. So they're going to keep nattering on about this and that, and maybe they'll make another stab at de-funding the fabulous Planned Parenthood or something of the sort. To my mind, it's just not going to work.
Anna Quindlen
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As I said, I had this fabulous college education. At college I met the man to whom I've been married for 34 years and who is the father of those three kids. I seriously considered going to another college, and my life would have been completely different in every way.
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high fashion has little to do with what women wear and a lot to do with what retailers mark down later.
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