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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.

Anne Tyler

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Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Much
Literature
Backgrounds
Long
Family
Appear
Think
History
Appearance
Thinking
Write
Details
Character
Notes
Calculated
Ever
Early
Artificial
Book
Novel
Background
Writing
Stage
Lifts

More quotes by Anne Tyler

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It seems to me that good novels celebrate the mystery in ordinary life, and summing it all up in psychological terms strips the mystery away
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Sooner or later, even the sharpest pain became flattened.
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(About parenting:) ... all that tedium, broken up by little spurts of high drama.
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How plotless real life was!
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... everyone must play his role.
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You think we're a family,' Cody said, turning back. 'You think we're some jolly, situation-comedy family when we're in particles, torn apart, torn all over the place, and our mother was a witch.
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It is not how much you love someone, but who you are when you are with him.
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...if you catalogue grudges, anything looks bad.
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Farmers are patient men. They got to be. Got to see those seeds come up week by week, fraction by fraction, and sweat it out for some days not knowing yet is it weeds or vegetables.
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I didn't really choose to write I more or less fell into it.
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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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Liam really enjoyed a good movie. He found it restful to watch people's conversations without being expected to join in. But he always felt sort of lonesome if he didn't have someone next to him to nudge in the ribs at the good parts.
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The very thing that attracts you to someone can end up putting you off.
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Bravest thing about people is how they go on loving mortal beings after finding out there's such a thing as dying.
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My family can always tell when I'm well into a novel because the meals get very crummy.
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My writing day has grown shorter as I've aged, although it seems to produce the same number of pages.
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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.
Anne Tyler
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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 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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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.
Anne Tyler