Quote

When I'm working on something, I proceed as if no one else will ever read it.

Anne Tyler

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Something
Proceed
Working
Read
Else
Ever

More quotes by Anne Tyler

Image
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.
Anne Tyler
Image
I think it must be very hard to be one of the new young writers who are urged to put themselves forward when it may be the last thing on earth they'd be good at
Anne Tyler
Image
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
Image
Isn't a memorial service meant to comfort the living?
Anne Tyler
Image
I consciously try to end my novels at a point where I won't have to wonder about my characters ever again.
Anne Tyler
Image
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
Image
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
Image
(About parenting:) ... all that tedium, broken up by little spurts of high drama.
Anne Tyler
Image
The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning
Anne Tyler
Image
I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get
Anne Tyler
Image
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
Image
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.
Anne Tyler
Image
I spend about a year between novels
Anne Tyler
Image
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.
Anne Tyler
Image
People always call it luck when you've acted more sensibly than they have.
Anne Tyler
Image
Smells could bring a person back clearer than pictures even could.
Anne Tyler
Image
Now peculiar scraps of knowledge were stuck to him like lint from all his jobs.
Anne Tyler
Image
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
Image
I write because I want to have more than one life.
Anne Tyler
Image
I'm falling into disrepair
Anne Tyler