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Sooner or later, even the sharpest pain became flattened.

Anne Tyler

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Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Sharpest
Sooner
Later
Became
Pain
Even
Flattened

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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.
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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.
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There is no sound more peaceful than rain on the roof, if you're safe asleep in someone else's house.
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I'm falling into disrepair
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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.
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Women were the ones that held the reins, it emerged.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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In real life I avoid all parties altogether, but on paper I can mingle with the best of them
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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.
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Just because we're related doesn't mean we are any good at understanding each other.
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He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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But if you never did anything you couldn't undo you'd end up doing nothing at all.
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The Amateur Marriage grew out of the reflection that of all the opportunities to show differences in character, surely an unhappy marriage must be the richest.
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The very thing that attracts you to someone can end up putting you off.
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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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