Quote

Reading any piece of writing aloud is an acid test, particularly when it comes to dialogue. There were writers I'd always admired who suddenly rang false when I spoke their words in our living room.

Anne Tyler

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Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Always
Room
Test
Pieces
Dialogue
Rooms
False
Rang
Reading
Suddenly
Aloud
Words
Tests
Admired
Living
Particularly
Acid
Comes
Piece
Spokes
Writing
Writers
Spoke

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I didn't really choose to write I more or less fell into it.
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(About parenting:) ... all that tedium, broken up by little spurts of high drama.
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...it's closeness that does you in. Never get too close to people, son.
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I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining it too closely.
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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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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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But if you never did anything you couldn't undo you'd end up doing nothing at all.
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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.
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I'm falling into disrepair
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Now peculiar scraps of knowledge were stuck to him like lint from all his jobs.
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When I'm working on something, I proceed as if no one else will ever read it.
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When I read, I'm purely a reader
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I hated childhood, and spent it sitting behind a book waiting for adulthood to arrive.
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My stories are never quite good enough
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The very thing that attracts you to someone can end up putting you off.
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For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood.
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While armchair travelers dream of going places, traveling armchairs dream of staying put.
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Just because we're related doesn't mean we are any good at understanding each other.
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I expect that any day now, I will have said all I have to say I'll have used up all my characters, and then I'll be free to get on with my real life.
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View your burden as a gift. It's the theme that has been given you to work with. Accept that and lean into it.
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