Ann Patchett

“You don't see many shy terrorists.”

— Ann Patchett

I'm very comfortable writing.

— Ann Patchett

I am a totally public person.

— Ann Patchett

Everybody believes in chance.

— Ann Patchett

Everyone knows everything eventually.

— Ann Patchett

Fiction is always really a labor.

— Ann Patchett

Learn to write by writing

— Ann Patchett

I'd like to read all of Proust.

— Ann Patchett

My favorite thing about Nashville is the parks.

— Ann Patchett

“Art is not sin. It’s not always good. But it is not a sin.”

— Ann Patchett

I don't want to stand with somebody's praise.

— Ann Patchett

Love was action. It came to you. It was not a choice.

— Ann Patchett

Home, bed, sleep, mother--who knew more beautiful words than these?

— Ann Patchett

I'm just such a Luddite, and I want to write books about Luddites.

— Ann Patchett

“I don't have any talent for vacations.”

— Ann Patchett

“At least she was not a tall woman. She was a pixie, a pocket Venus.”

— Ann Patchett

“Without worry to protect me, every thought that came into my mind received real attention.”

— Ann Patchett

“She understood in life that a person was only allowed one trip down to hell.”

— Ann Patchett

“This was the pleasure of a long life: the way some things worked themselves out.”

— Ann Patchett

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

“She didn’t even think about the drive. She was from Los Angeles; driving was simply part of it.”

— Ann Patchett

“Wearing shoes in the house was barbaric. There was almost as much indignity in wearing shoes in the house as there was…

— Ann Patchett

If you're trying to find out what's coming next, turn off everything you own that has an OFF switch and listen.

— Ann Patchett

Part of it is living in Tennessee. I'm so out of the loop. And as a person, I'm out of the loop.…

— Ann Patchett

If what we want to do is promote reading and writing and publishing and making sure this is a business that keeps…

— Ann Patchett

I had a real computer solitaire problem. I'd gotten to the point where I had to win a game before I could…

— Ann Patchett

I was very influenced by The Magic Mountain. It's a book that had a huge impact on me. I loved that as…

— Ann Patchett

You see an absolutely brilliant film later, as an adult, and you walk out thinking about what to have for dinner. Whereas…

— Ann Patchett

“She told the woman to go to one of the online agent sites that list agents who are looking for new clients,…

— Ann Patchett

“Writing a novel and living a life are very much the same thing. The secret is finding the balance between going out…

— Ann Patchett

“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

Whenever I saw her, I felt like I had been living in another country, doing moderately well in another language, and then…

— Ann Patchett

“The process of putting the thing you value most in the world out for the assessment of strangers is a confidence-shaking business…

— Ann Patchett

He believed that life, true life, was something that was stored in music. True life was kept safe in the lines of…

— Ann Patchett

“I have just reread The Age of Innocence. Poor Countess Olenska, so much more alive than everyone in New York. She was…

— Ann Patchett

“The question is whether or not you choose to disturb the world around you, or if you choose to let it go…

— Ann Patchett

“The entire time Albie followed Beverly around the house doing what the children referred to as “the stripper soundtrack”: Boom chicka-boom, boom-boom…

— Ann Patchett

“They didn't account for Lucy, only for her face. And maybe they couldn't. She was too huge for casual consideration. But how…

— Ann Patchett

“demand absolute cooperation and attention.” Roughly two-thirds of the guests looked frightened, but a scattered third looked both frightened and puzzled. These…

— Ann Patchett

I believe that, more than anything else, this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people…

— Ann Patchett