My writing process has changed because it's harder to find uninterrupted time. — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“Making friends with other writers you respect is reason enough to go to graduate school. You” — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
You can't say, "I'm too busy writing to be political." You are one person. — 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 Image
I decided to make my living as a magazine writer. And I found that it was really easy and fun. — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
I always feel it is a shortcoming of mine as a reader and as a writer that I frankly need to like… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“We all have ideas, sometimes good ones, not to mention the gift of emotional turmoil that every childhood provides.” — 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 Image
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… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
I've never had a terrible job. I've been a cook, waitress, bookseller, teacher, freelance writer. I know what the bad jobs are,… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“No one should go into debt to study creative writing. It’s simply not worth it. This is not medical school.” — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
I can write for any magazine now, in any voice. I can do it in two hours, I could do it in… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“The more we are willing to separate from distraction and step into the open arms of boredom, the more writing will get… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“Writing a novel and living a life are very much the same thing. The secret is finding the balance between going out… — 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 have been accused of being a Pollyanna, but I think there are plenty of people dealing with the darker side of… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
I think of Nashville as a very natural place. We're easy going, we are ourselves. There isn't a lot of preening or… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“if I wanted to be a better writer, I was the only person who could push myself to do it. It was… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art you must master the craft. If you… — 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 a person has never given writing a try, they assume that a brilliant idea is hard to come by. But really,… — 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
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
I craft everything in the beginning. I know where the characters are going before I start writing the book. — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
The tricky thing about being a writer, or about being any kind of artist, is that in addition to making art you… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft. If you… — 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 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
I used to do everything to keep a wall up around myself and keep my life quiet so that I could write. — 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
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
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
