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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

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Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Periods
Thought
Stay
Telephone
Seems
Seem
Telephones
Back
Bring
Teens
Much
Waiting
Hoping
Things
House
Endure
Never
Else
Period
Would
Spent
Life
Someone

More quotes by Anne Tyler

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I write because I want to have more than one life.
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It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.
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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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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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My family can always tell when I'm well into a novel because the meals get very crummy.
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He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller.
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I've always enjoyed studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level.
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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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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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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.
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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?
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While armchair travelers dream of going places, traveling armchairs dream of staying put.
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But I don't think people take bad advice. They've got intuition too, you know. In fact I'd be surprised if they take any advice at all.
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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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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
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Liam really enjoyed a good movie. He found it restful to watch people's conversations without being expected to join in. But he always felt sort of lonesome if he didn't have someone next to him to nudge in the ribs at the good parts.
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They were like people who run to meet, holding out their arms, but their aim is wrong they pass each other and keep running.
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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.
Anne Tyler
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When I read, I'm purely a reader
Anne Tyler
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But if you never did anything you couldn't undo you'd end up doing nothing at all.
Anne Tyler