Anne Tyler

If I waited till I felt like writing, I'd never write at all.

— Anne Tyler

It struck her all at once that dealing with other human beings was an awful lot of work.

— Anne Tyler

“The real adventure, he thought, is the flow of time; it’s as much adventure as anyone could wish.”

— Anne Tyler

The very thing that attracts you to someone can end up putting you off.

— Anne Tyler

And she thought what a clean, simple life she would have led if it weren't for love.

— Anne Tyler

Smells could bring a person back clearer than pictures even could.

— Anne Tyler

I read so I can live more than one life in more than one place.

— Anne Tyler

It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.

— Anne Tyler

And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it's not supposed to…

— Anne Tyler

“The trouble is I'm reversible. You're hardly alive if you're reversible as I am…But the irreversible people' they get some place. Good…

— Anne Tyler

“Ghosts... they are the completions of the deads intended gestures, there unfinished plans still hanging in the air - something like when…

— Anne Tyler

They were like people who run to meet, holding out their arms, but their aim is wrong; they pass each other and…

— Anne Tyler

I remember leaving the hospital - thinking, 'Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don't know…

— Anne Tyler

I don't type [when I write] because . . . I often have the feeling that everything flows directly from my right hand.

— Anne Tyler

The Amateur Marriage grew out of the reflection that of all the opportunities to show differences in character, surely an unhappy marriage…

— Anne Tyler

“I was born with the impression that what happened in books was much for reasonable, and interesting, and real, in some ways,…

— Anne Tyler

“He began to see the situation from another angle. An assignment had been given him. Someone’s life, a small set of lives…

— Anne Tyler

There's surprisingly little difference between writing from a male angle and from a female angle, but I feel more restricted in my…

— Anne Tyler

“She passed her New York Reviews on to Troy without giving them a glance; she told him she thought there was something…

— Anne Tyler

“When she went out to the kitchen, I knew she would be getting her Triscuits. That was what she had for her…

— Anne Tyler

“She liked to think that she was wearing her beauty out—using it up, she liked to think. She took some satisfaction in…

— Anne Tyler

“Epictetus say that everything has two handles, one by which it can be borne and one which it cannot. If your brother…

— Anne Tyler

“People like Eunice just never had quite figured out how to get along in the world. They might be perfectly intelligent, but…

— Anne Tyler

I don't want to say I hear voices; well, actually I do hear voices, but I don't think it's supernatural. I think…

— Anne Tyler

“Sometimes she felt like a tiny gnat, whirring around her family’s edges”

— Anne Tyler

“Much of Macon's youth was ruled by connotations.”

— Anne Tyler

It is not how much you love someone, but who you are when you are with him.

— Anne Tyler

I write because I want to have more than one life.

— Anne Tyler

“A Japanese man festooned with cameras, a nun, a young girl in braids.”

— Anne Tyler

...it's closeness that does you in. Never get too close to people, son.

— Anne Tyler

People who hadn't suffered a loss yet struck me as not quite grown up.

— Anne Tyler

She worded it a bit strongly, but I do find myself more and more struck by the differences between the sexes. To…

— Anne Tyler

There is no sound more peaceful than rain on the roof, if you're safe asleep in someone else's house.

— Anne Tyler

...he thought of dying as a kind of adventure, something new that he hadn't yet experienced. Like an unusual vacation trip.

— Anne Tyler

“Just think how it would look if a reader walked into a café you'd recommended and found it taken over by vegetarians.”

— Anne Tyler

I wonder how many times we dream that kind of dream-something strange and illogical-and fail to realize God is trying to tell…

— Anne Tyler

Mostly it's lies, writing novels. You set out to tell an untrue story and you try to make it believable, even to…

— Anne Tyler

“Sifting through these layers of belongings while Ira stood mute behind her, Maggie had a sudden view of her life as circular.…

— Anne Tyler

“Either she was admirably at ease anywhere or she suffered from a total lack of discrimination; Liam couldn't decide which.”

— Anne Tyler

“Not invade her privacy! Just sit back and give up on her, as if she were a missing pet or mitten, or…

— Anne Tyler