Ann Patchett Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Ann Patchett on Wise Famous Quotes.
The quality of a life is defined not by its length, but by its depth, its actions and achievements. It is defined by our ability to love.
It was my own special brand of insanity that made me think the trials of Lucy's life could somehow be eased by the order of Tupperware.
The story of my marriage, which is the great joy and astonishment of my life, is too much like a fairy tale, the German kind, unsweetened by Disney.
No, you don't look at the cigarette, you look at me. When you light a cigarette you have to look the person in the eyes.
A daughter was a battle between fathers and boys in which the fathers fought valiantly and always lost.
But we cannot unbraid the story of another person's life and take out all the parts that don't suit our purposes and put forth only the ones that do.
As if the world had become a giant train station in which everything was delayed until further notice.
The tricky thing about being a writer, or about being any kind of artist, is that in addition to making art you also have to make a living.
The sick were a ferocious lot. They'd walk right through you if they thought that health was on the other side.
He used to say we all had a compass inside of us and what we needed to do was to find it and to follow it.
Had I given equal weight to everyone who had something to say, every story would have turned into a terrible game of Twister (left
Sometimes not having any idea where we're going works out better than we could possibly have imagined.
my mother knew that no woman thought she was beautiful, or beautiful enough, or beautiful in the right way.
Have never subscribed to the notion of "writing what you know," at least not for myself. I don't know enough interesting things.
(Interested in being a better writer? Go buy yourself a copy of The Collected Stories by Grace Paley.) The
Their relationship, which had been going on five years, was built on admiration and mutual disbelief. After
you also have to find him or her at a time in life when you're able to listen to, trust, and implement the lessons you receive. The
sense trying to make him feel bad about it. She tilted back her glass and went past the gin for a second time. She
Forgiveness, therefore, is key. I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing.
Maybe that was the definition of life everlasting: the belief that the next generation would carry your work forward.
It's not more complicated than that," she said. "That's all there is: Does he make you better and do you make him better?" Look
I changed along with it. Anything I thought I couldn't do turned out to be something I managed fine.
She was not one to set her teeth so far into something that she couldn't let go when presented with the truth.
If I were taking notes, they would read: I see something. A shape? I have no idea. It's not exactly the stuff that literary archives are made of.
Hard work is first and foremost hard, and whether or not it's ultimately rewarding is very rarely the thing you're thinking of at the moment.
No matter how much we love a book, the experience of reading it isn't complete until we can give it to someone who will love it as much as we do
If you're trying to find out what's coming next, turn off everything you own that has an OFF switch and listen.
Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft. If you want to write, practice writing.
Because of her singing they all went away feeling moved, feeling comforted, feeling, perhaps, the slightest tremors of faith.
Until then I'll keep writing things down, both the things I make up and the things that have happened. It is the way I've learned to see my life.
Instead, he was astonished by what he had: the chance to sit beside this woman in the late afternoon light while she read.
So was the movie excruciating to watch because nothing was right, or was it excruciating to watch because, impossibly, some things were? Every
I believe, in my better moments, that there is a plan and things go not the way we want them to but the way they should.
Far outside the city the tree frogs were calling her, and the deep, rhythmic pulse of their voices set the blood flow to her heart.
Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration?
I don't write for an audience, I don't think whether my book will sell, I don't sell it before I finish writing it.
Did you ever want to be a writer?" "No," she said, and she would have told him. "I only wanted to be a reader.
We all have ideas, sometimes good ones, not to mention the gift of emotional turmoil that every childhood provides.
If you grow corn or trade in pigs or write poetry then you go to Iowa City." "That's why I haven't been.
Running, the music flew into him, became the wind that pushed back his hair and the slap of his own feet on the pavement.
What you have to remember about your mother is that she didn't have her own character. She turned into whoever she was sitting next to. When
Even though I didn't know I was applying for the job, I have somehow become the spokesperson for independent book stores.
An essential element of being a writer is learning whom to listen to and whom to ignore where your work is concerned. Every
It makes you wonder. All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how.