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My writing day has grown shorter as I've aged, although it seems to produce the same number of pages.

Anne Tyler

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Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Literature
Shorter
Seems
Aged
Writing
Grown
Although
Pages
Number
Produce
Numbers

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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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Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.
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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?
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The very thing that attracts you to someone can end up putting you off.
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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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While armchair travelers dream of going places, traveling armchairs dream of staying put.
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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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My family can always tell when I'm well into a novel because the meals get very crummy.
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When you have children, you're obligated to live.
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...it's closeness that does you in. Never get too close to people, son.
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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
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Some people are aware of everything that is going on everywhere at every moment in their lives.
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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.
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I don't type [when I write] because . . . I often have the feeling that everything flows directly from my right hand.
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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.
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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.
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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
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... everyone must play his role.
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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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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