Ann Beattie

I don't even correct people when they mispronounce my name now.

— Ann Beattie

Whatever one intends, the work takes on a life of its own.

— Ann Beattie

Any life will seem dramatic if you omit mention of most of it.

— Ann Beattie

Clichés so often befall vain people.

— Ann Beattie

It's gratifying that it does; I love to give readings.

— Ann Beattie

What will happen can't be stopped. Aim for Grace.

— Ann Beattie

I think I write about things that are mysterious to me.

— Ann Beattie

I've spent my life supporting myself.

— Ann Beattie

Falling in Place was meant to be very much rooted in a place and time, and music was a part of that.

— Ann Beattie

I am not alone in bearing grudges against reviewers who have doomed a book's chances because they've missed the point, the tone,…

— Ann Beattie

“People who were dying: their minds always raced past whatever was being said, and still the pain went faster, leapfrogging ahead.”

— Ann Beattie

It's often been said that I'm an extremely depressing, cynical writer. I've never known what to make of that.

— Ann Beattie

The admiration of another writer’s work is almost in inverse proportion to similarities in style.

— Ann Beattie

Women are obviously much more discriminated against than men in many ways.

— Ann Beattie

If you could have a book called My Favorite Six Stories, I don't think I'd have trouble doing that.

— Ann Beattie

Also minimalism is a term that all of us who share so little in common and who are lumped together as minimalists…

— Ann Beattie

While I would agree that I write about serious subjects, and that they're not necessarily the most pleasant subjects or even the…

— Ann Beattie

When I lived in New York, not only did I have safety locks on the door but I had the music going,…

— Ann Beattie

Because I don’t work with an outline, writing a story is like crossing a stream, now I’m on this rock, now I’m…

— Ann Beattie

I could name a few songs and say exactly what summer they came out and what boy I thought I was in…

— Ann Beattie

Clouds are poems, and the most moving poems linger on the blackboard so long, written in cursive so lovely, they also exist…

— Ann Beattie

I've been in this business for a long time, and I no longer think that anything that I do by way of…

— Ann Beattie

I think almost always that what gets me going with a story is the atmosphere, the visual imagery, and then I people…

— Ann Beattie

It's not about having things figured out, or about communicating with other people, trying to make them understand what you understand. It's…

— Ann Beattie

“This is a story, told the way you say stories should be told: Somebody grew up, fell in love, and spent a…

— Ann Beattie

“Jane remembers those years, though, as if they had been [a movie]--in part because her friends...always talked about everything as if it…

— Ann Beattie

“This is a story, told the way you say stories should be told: Somebody grew up, fell in love, and spent a…

— Ann Beattie

People forget years and remember moments.

— Ann Beattie

Nobody can assume that, to a writer, everything is off-limits.

— Ann Beattie

the real killer was when you married the wrong person but had the right children.

— Ann Beattie

You put a character out there and you're in their power. You're in trouble if they're in yours.

— Ann Beattie

It's interesting, though, that in daily life, I think of myself as being relatively unobservant.

— Ann Beattie

I think that I'm serious, but I don't think that I'm inordinately bleak.

— Ann Beattie

I must say also that it's never worked to my disadvantage that I have long, blond hair.

— Ann Beattie

I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't…

— Ann Beattie

I like a lot of Margaret Atwood, I like much of Alice Munro. Again, if you were to ask me about male…

— Ann Beattie

You have to figure out who the right person is to tell the story. And often, people who are very self-aware will…

— Ann Beattie

I feel that these stories are being written to articulate certain confusions and disappointments, and I do mean to shake up the…

— Ann Beattie

Well, a few years ago I think I could have given you a more enthusiastic answer about that but in the last…

— Ann Beattie

Much of what happens in Love Always is really from overheard conversations in the Russian Tea Room. It's an improvisation of the…

— Ann Beattie