Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Anne Tyler

Image
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.
Anne Tyler
Image
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.
Anne Tyler
Image
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.
Anne Tyler
Image
People always call it luck when you've acted more sensibly than they have.
Anne Tyler
Image
People always talked about a mother's uncanny ability to read her children, but that was nothing compared to how children could read their mothers.
Anne Tyler
Image
Reading any piece of writing aloud is an acid test, particularly when it comes to dialogue. There were writers I'd always admired who suddenly rang false when I spoke their words in our living room.
Anne Tyler
Image
It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.
Anne Tyler
Image
I spend about a year between novels
Anne Tyler
Image
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.
Anne Tyler
Image
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
Anne Tyler
Image
I've always enjoyed studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level.
Anne Tyler
Image
For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood.
Anne Tyler
Image
Sooner or later, even the sharpest pain became flattened.
Anne Tyler
Image
Now peculiar scraps of knowledge were stuck to him like lint from all his jobs.
Anne Tyler
Image
He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller.
Anne Tyler
Image
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')
Anne Tyler
Image
...if you catalogue grudges, anything looks bad.
Anne Tyler
Image
I consciously try to end my novels at a point where I won't have to wonder about my characters ever again.
Anne Tyler
Image
Bravest thing about people is how they go on loving mortal beings after finding out there's such a thing as dying.
Anne Tyler
Image
My writing day has grown shorter as I've aged, although it seems to produce the same number of pages.
Anne Tyler