I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
My writing process has changed because it's harder to find uninterrupted time. — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“I decided I was going to make up a novel, and that the novel was going to get me out of the… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
No matter how much we love a book, the experience of reading it isn't complete until we can give it to someone… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
Writing is an amazing place to hide, to go into the rabbit hole, and pull the trap door down over your head. — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“I think that what influences us in literature comes less from what we love and more from what we happen to pick… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
You learn every time you write a book, and then you take that new knowledge and experience into the next book. Hopefully,… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“The journey from the head to the hand is perilous and lined with bodies. It is the road on which nearly everyone… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“I believe that, more than anything else, this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“Novel writing, I soon discovered, is like channel swimming: a slow and steady stroke over a long distance in a cold, dark… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
I don't know how to write a novel in the world of cellphones. I don't know how to write a novel in… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
You can't be a good person when you're writing and a bad person to your husband or a bad friend. You can't… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
If you want to write and can't figure out how to do it, try this: Pick an amount of time to sit… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
People always say, "Can writing be taught?" I always think, I can teach you how to write a better sentence, how to… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
We have different kinds of intimacy with many, many people. I'm disappointed by well-written novels that only deal with two or three… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“He'd told her she wouldn't have to do anything but lie on the big down sofa in the front room and read… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
Staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. — Ann Patchett Copy Share
“Without worry to protect me, every thought that came into my mind received real attention.” — Ann Patchett Copy Share
“I wrote the last sentence of The Patron Saint of Liars in early April and stumbled out of my apartment and into the beautiful… — Ann Patchett Copy Share
“He was in love, and never had he felt such kindness towards another person.” — Ann Patchett Copy Share
If I was a waitress, I was too tired at the end of the day when I came home to try to write. — Ann Patchett Copy Share
“She didn't know how to hate her mother yet, but every time she left her father crying in the airport she came that much… — Ann Patchett Copy Share
“When you think of love you think as an American. You must think like a Russian. It is a more expansive view.' 'Americans havea… — Ann Patchett Copy Share
“...Nebraska was white, a page as still as fallen snow. It was not crosshatched with roads, overrun with the hard lines of interstate systems.… — Ann Patchett Copy Share
“Clearly he needed a father, but some other father, any other father, would have been preferable.” — Ann Patchett Copy Share
