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I suspect that marriage is like parenthood: every last one of us is an amateur at it.

Anne Tyler

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Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Every
Like
Amateur
Parenthood
Suspect
Suspects
Marriage
Lasts
Last

More quotes by Anne Tyler

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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.
Anne Tyler
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I do write long, long character notes - family background, history, details of appearance - much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage.
Anne Tyler
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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
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Once your mind is caught on the right snag, there's nothing so hard about the mechanics of writing.
Anne Tyler
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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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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.
Anne Tyler
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I think I was born with the impression that what happened in books was much more reasonable, and interesting, and real, in some ways, than what happened in life.
Anne Tyler
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The very thing that attracts you to someone can end up putting you off.
Anne Tyler
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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.
Anne Tyler
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My family can always tell when I'm well into a novel because the meals get very crummy.
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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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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...if you catalogue grudges, anything looks bad.
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.
Anne Tyler
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I love to think about chance - about how one little overheard word, one pebble in a shoe, can change the universe.
Anne Tyler
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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
Anne Tyler
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Smells could bring a person back clearer than pictures even could.
Anne Tyler
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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
Anne Tyler
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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.
Anne Tyler
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And she thought what a clean, simple life she would have led if it weren't for love.
Anne Tyler