Sometimes if there's a book you really want to read, you have to write it yourself. — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
I made a startling discovery. Time spent writing = output of work. Amazing. — 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
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
“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
“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
I've been writing the same book my whole life - that you're in one family, and all of a sudden, you're in… — 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
I tend to keep my ideas in my head. When I write something down in a notebook it's never centralized. There are… — 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
“Maybe everyone does have a novel in them, perhaps even a great one. I don't believe it, but for the purposes of… — 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
“She told the woman to go to one of the online agent sites that list agents who are looking for new clients,… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“If you want to write, practice writing. Practice it for hours a day, not to come up with a story you can… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
Reading fiction not only develops our imagination and creativity, it gives us the skills to be alone. It gives us the ability… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
I love telling people what to read. It's my favorite thing in the world, to buy books and force books on people,… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“An essential element of being a writer is learning whom to listen to and whom to ignore where your work is concerned.… — 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
“Without worry to protect me, every thought that came into my mind received real attention.” — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“In the future, he will try to say her name enough, but he never can.” — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
My novels are very much the same, as I think many people's novels are. — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
“He was in love, and never had he felt such kindness towards another person.” — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
