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Mostly it's lies, writing novels. You set out to tell an untrue story and you try to make it believable, even to yourself. Which calls for details any good lie does.

Anne Tyler

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Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Make
Lying
Believable
Good
Story
Untrue
Tell
Novels
Stories
Calls
Doe
Mostly
Writing
Details
Even
Lies
Trying
Novel

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People always call it luck when you've acted more sensibly than they have.
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He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller.
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She worded it a bit strongly, but I do find myself more and more struck by the differences between the sexes. To put it another way: All marriages are mixed marriages.
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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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Smells could bring a person back clearer than pictures even could.
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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.
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Bravest thing about people is how they go on loving mortal beings after finding out there's such a thing as dying.
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I write because I want to have more than one life.
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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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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.
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I consciously try to end my novels at a point where I won't have to wonder about my characters ever again.
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When you have children, you're obligated to live.
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Time, in general, has always been a central obsession of mine - what it does to people, how it can constitute a plot all on its own. So naturally, I am interested in old age.
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Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul - chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!
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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.
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I just want to be told a story, and I want to believe I'm living that story, and I don't give a thought to influences or method or any other writerly concerns
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I spend about a year between novels
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Isn't a memorial service meant to comfort the living?
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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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Some people are aware of everything that is going on everywhere at every moment in their lives.
Anne Tyler