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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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Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Behinds
Behind
Waiting
Adulthood
Book
Arrive
Hated
Spent
Childhood
Sitting

More quotes by Anne Tyler

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For me, writing something down was the only road out...I hated childhood, and spent it sitting behind a book waiting for adulthood to arrive. When I ran out of books I made up my own. At night, when I couldn't sleep, I made up stories in the dark.
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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I read so I can live more than one life in more than one place.
Anne Tyler
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How plotless real life was!
Anne Tyler
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In real life I avoid all parties altogether, but on paper I can mingle with the best of them
Anne Tyler
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When I'm working on something, I proceed as if no one else will ever read it.
Anne Tyler
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... everyone must play his role.
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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(About parenting:) ... all that tedium, broken up by little spurts of high drama.
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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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
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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.
Anne Tyler
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Women were the ones that held the reins, it emerged.
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 don't know what takes more courage: surviving a lifelong endurance test because you once made a promise or breaking free, disrupting all your world.
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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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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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
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Now peculiar scraps of knowledge were stuck to him like lint from all his jobs.
Anne Tyler
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Some people are aware of everything that is going on everywhere at every moment in their lives.
Anne Tyler