Anne Tyler Quotes About Literature
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When I read, I'm purely a reader
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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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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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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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My decision to start a new one is just that, a decision, since I never get inspirations.
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I can never tell ahead of time which book will give me trouble - some balk every step of the way, others seem to write themselves - but certainly the mechanics of writing, finding the time and the psychic space, are easier now that my children are grown.
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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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My writing day has grown shorter as I've aged, although it seems to produce the same number of pages.
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But what I hope for from a book - either one that I write or one that I read - is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.
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My stories are never quite good enough
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I'm too shy for personal appearances, and I've found out that anytime I talk about my writing, I can't do any writing for many weeks afterward.
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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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The Amateur Marriage grew out of the reflection that of all the opportunities to show differences in character, surely an unhappy marriage must be the richest.
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In real life I avoid all parties altogether, but on paper I can mingle with the best of them
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Not until the final draft do I force myself to remember that I'm going to have to think about how it will affect other people.
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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 remember leaving the hospital - thinking, 'Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don't know beans about babies! I don't have a license to do this.' We're just amateurs.
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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.
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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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I forget a book as soon as I finish writing it, which is not always a good thing
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I've always enjoyed studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level.
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If I waited till I felt like writing, I'd never write at all.
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I'll write maybe one long paragraph describing the events, then a page or two breaking the events into chapters, and then reams of pages delving into my characters. After that, I'm ready to begin
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