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When I read, I'm purely a reader

Anne Tyler

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Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Reader
Literature
Read
Purely

More quotes by Anne Tyler

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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.
Anne Tyler
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... everyone must play his role.
Anne Tyler
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Now peculiar scraps of knowledge were stuck to him like lint from all his jobs.
Anne Tyler
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Not until the final draft do I force myself to remember that I'm going to have to think about how it will affect other people.
Anne Tyler
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But if you never did anything you couldn't undo you'd end up doing nothing at all.
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.
Anne Tyler
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But what I hope for from a book - either one that I write or one that I read - is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.
Anne Tyler
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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.
Anne Tyler
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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.
Anne Tyler
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Try Jesus, you won't regret it, a billboard read.
Anne Tyler
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My family can always tell when I'm well into a novel because the meals get very crummy.
Anne Tyler
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I'll write maybe one long paragraph describing the events, then a page or two breaking the events into chapters, and then reams of pages delving into my characters. After that, I'm ready to begin
Anne Tyler
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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.
Anne Tyler
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While armchair travelers dream of going places, traveling armchairs dream of staying put.
Anne Tyler
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I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get
Anne Tyler
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Some people are aware of everything that is going on everywhere at every moment in their lives.
Anne Tyler
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I write because I want more than one life I insist on a wider selection. It's greed, plain and simple.
Anne Tyler
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How plotless real life was!
Anne Tyler
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I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them - without a thought about publication - and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside.
Anne Tyler
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Smells could bring a person back clearer than pictures even could.
Anne Tyler