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For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood.

Anne Tyler

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Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Would
Various
Characters
Choose
Blood
Makeshift
Literature
Surrogate
Family
Surrogates
Character
Unrelated
Always
Formed

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I can never tell ahead of time which book will give me trouble - some balk every step of the way, others seem to write themselves - but certainly the mechanics of writing, finding the time and the psychic space, are easier now that my children are grown.
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I have spent so long erecting partitions around the part of me that writes - learning how to close the door on it when ordinary lfe intervenes, how to close the door on ordinary life when it's time to start writing again - that I'm not sure I could fit the two parts of me back together now.
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There's surprisingly little difference between writing from a male angle and from a female angle, but I feel more restricted in my language when I'm writing as a male character because males tend to sound less emotionally expressive than females.
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One sad thing about this world is that the acts that take the most out of you are usually the ones that people will never know about. (from 'Celestial Navigation')
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...he thought of dying as a kind of adventure, something new that he hadn't yet experienced. Like an unusual vacation trip.
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How plotless real life was!
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They were like people who run to meet, holding out their arms, but their aim is wrong they pass each other and keep running.
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...it's closeness that does you in. Never get too close to people, son.
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The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning
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I'm falling into disrepair
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People always call it luck when you've acted more sensibly than they have.
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There is no true life. Your true life is the one you end up with, whatever it may be. You just do the best you can with what you've got.
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(About parenting:) ... all that tedium, broken up by little spurts of high drama.
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I just want to be told a story, and I want to believe I'm living that story, and I don't give a thought to influences or method or any other writerly concerns
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View your burden as a gift. It's the theme that has been given you to work with. Accept that and lean into it.
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I do write long, long character notes - family background, history, details of appearance - much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage.
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When I read, I'm purely a reader
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But I don't think people take bad advice. They've got intuition too, you know. In fact I'd be surprised if they take any advice at all.
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I wonder how many times we dream that kind of dream-something strange and illogical-and fail to realize God is trying to tell us something.
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Mostly it's lies, writing novels. You set out to tell an untrue story and you try to make it believable, even to yourself. Which calls for details any good lie does.
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