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I forget a book as soon as I finish writing it, which is not always a good thing

Anne Tyler

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Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Good
Always
Finish
Soon
Literature
Forget
Book
Writing
Thing

More quotes by Anne Tyler

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There's surprisingly little difference between writing from a male angle and from a female angle, but I feel more restricted in my language when I'm writing as a male character because males tend to sound less emotionally expressive than females.
Anne Tyler
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And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it's not supposed to be.
Anne Tyler
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... everyone must play his role.
Anne Tyler
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I write because I want to have more than one life.
Anne Tyler
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I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get
Anne Tyler
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He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller.
Anne Tyler
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I don't want to say I hear voices well, actually I do hear voices, but I don't think it's supernatural. I think it's just that when characters are given enough texture and backbone, then lo and behold, they stand on their own.
Anne Tyler
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They were like people who run to meet, holding out their arms, but their aim is wrong they pass each other and keep running.
Anne Tyler
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(About parenting:) ... all that tedium, broken up by little spurts of high drama.
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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Bravest thing about people is how they go on loving mortal beings after finding out there's such a thing as dying.
Anne Tyler
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None of my own experiences ever finds its way into my work. However, the stages of my life - motherhood, middle age, etc. - often influence my subject matter.
Anne Tyler
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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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For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood.
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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It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.
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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Point of view is not something I consciously decide. Almost always, when I come up with a plot I find that the point of view has automatically arrived with it, part and parcel of the story.
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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I've always thought a hotel ought to offer optional small animals. I mean a cat to sleep on your bed at night, or a dog of some kind to act pleased when you come in. You ever notice how a hotel room feels so lifeless?
Anne Tyler