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Once your mind is caught on the right snag, there's nothing so hard about the mechanics of writing.

Anne Tyler

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Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Right
Hard
Writing
Mind
Snag
Mechanics
Mechanic
Caught
Nothing

More quotes by Anne Tyler

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People imagine that missing a loved one works kind of like missing cigarettes,' he said. 'The first day is really hard but the next day is less hard and so forth, easier and easier the longer you go on. But instead it's like missing water. Every day, you notice the person's absence more.
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I'm too shy for personal appearances, and I've found out that anytime I talk about my writing, I can't do any writing for many weeks afterward.
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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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I've always thought sleep was a wonderful invention. Not that being awake isn't nice too, of course. But when I get up in the morning, I think, boy, only fourteen more hours and I can be back to sleep again ... And I never dream, because it distracts my mind from pure sleeping.
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It's true that writing is a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them.
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Now peculiar scraps of knowledge were stuck to him like lint from all his jobs.
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It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.
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And she thought what a clean, simple life she would have led if it weren't for love.
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My decision to start a new one is just that, a decision, since I never get inspirations.
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Isn't a memorial service meant to comfort the living?
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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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She was good at talking with young people. She seemed to view them as interesting foreigners.
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He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller.
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I love to think about chance - about how one little overheard word, one pebble in a shoe, can change the universe.
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If I waited till I felt like writing, I'd never write at all.
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It’s like the grief has been covered over with some kind of blanket. It’s still there, but the sharpest edges are .. muffled, sort of. Then, ever now and then, I lift the corner of the blanket just to check, and .. whoa! Like a knife! I’m not sure that will ever change.
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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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Just because we're related doesn't mean we are any good at understanding each other.
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Sooner or later, even the sharpest pain became flattened.
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I think it must be very hard to be one of the new young writers who are urged to put themselves forward when it may be the last thing on earth they'd be good at
Anne Tyler