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I consciously try to end my novels at a point where I won't have to wonder about my characters ever again.

Anne Tyler

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Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Trying
Characters
Novel
Wonder
Literature
Point
Ends
Character
Consciously
Ever
Novels

More quotes by Anne Tyler

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For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood.
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I didn't really choose to write I more or less fell into it.
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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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He was wondering if there was some cryptic, cultish mark on his door that told all the crazy people he'd have trouble saying no.
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How plotless real life was!
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When I read, I'm purely a reader
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I forget a book as soon as I finish writing it, which is not always a good thing
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I remember leaving the hospital - thinking, 'Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don't know beans about babies! I don't have a license to do this.' We're just amateurs.
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We stay in the house so much because I am waiting for the telephone. I seem to be back in my teens, a period I thought I would never have to endure again: my life is spent hoping for things that only someone else can bring about.
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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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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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Women were the ones that held the reins, it emerged.
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Once your mind is caught on the right snag, there's nothing so hard about the mechanics of writing.
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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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It seems to me that since I've had children, I've grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.
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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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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.
Anne Tyler
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Something was wrong with a world where people came and went so easily.
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Sooner or later, even the sharpest pain became flattened.
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Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.
Anne Tyler