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Something was wrong with a world where people came and went so easily.

Anne Tyler

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Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Wrong
Death
Something
World
People
Easily
Went
Came

More quotes by Anne Tyler

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I have spent so long erecting partitions around the part of me that writes - learning how to close the door on it when ordinary lfe intervenes, how to close the door on ordinary life when it's time to start writing again - that I'm not sure I could fit the two parts of me back together now.
Anne Tyler
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I hated childhood, and spent it sitting behind a book waiting for adulthood to arrive.
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.
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Odd how clear it suddenly became, once a person had died, that the body was the very least of him.
Anne Tyler
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I can never tell ahead of time which book will give me trouble - some balk every step of the way, others seem to write themselves - but certainly the mechanics of writing, finding the time and the psychic space, are easier now that my children are grown.
Anne Tyler
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No couple buying wedding rings wants to be reminded that someday one of them will have to accept the other one's ring from a nurse or an undertaker.
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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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.
Anne Tyler
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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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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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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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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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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
Anne Tyler
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Try Jesus, you won't regret it, a billboard read.
Anne Tyler
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I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them.
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. When my characters join the circus, I’m joining the circus. Although I’m happily married, I spent a great deal of time mentally living with incompatible husbands.
Anne Tyler
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I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get
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 expect that any day now, I will have said all I have to say I'll have used up all my characters, and then I'll be free to get on with my real life.
Anne Tyler
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I was standing in the schoolyard waiting for a child when another mother came up to me. Have you found work yet? she asked. Or are you still just writing?
Anne Tyler