I think books in which people are really happy and things are going well are probably the most challenging novels there are… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
I think I'm like most novelists in that my books have gotten farther and farther away from autobiography the longer I've been… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
Downtime is where we become ourselves, looking into the middle distance, kicking at the curb, lying on the grass or sitting on… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
“I've discovered that sometimes writing badly can eventually lead to something better. Not writing at all leads to nothing.” — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
The 1992 US Olympic basketball team is the best sports team ever, the equivalent of rounding up the greatest American writers of… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
Every story has already been told. Once you've read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
I think what saved me, as a writer, is that there are really two breaking points in my life. One was when… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
Novels are usually built on conflict, sometimes very, very difficult conflict. It's why men write war novels - because there you go,… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
Writing seems to be the only profession people imagine you can do by thinking about doing it. — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
The truth is that when you're writing a novel you're really living in it; you're living in the house, and you're living… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
If you want to write what the world is about, you have to write details...real life is in the dishes. Real life… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
I don't really read what people write about me. Someone gives my novel one star; are they a troll? Are they someone… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
I don't have to listen to the Gospel on Sunday to know the stories of the New Testament. They inform so much… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
I'm boggled by the idea of being an only child. I know nothing at all (I'm happy to say) about having had… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
I can't think of anything to write about except families. They are a metaphor for every other part of society. — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
Let me say first that reading is my favorite pastime, bar none. If I couldn't read, I don't know what I'd do.… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
Uncontrollable consumerism has become a watchword of our culture despite regular and compelling calls for its end. The United States has more… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
You write to suit some sense in yourself and trust that that will resonate with a certain wider readership. — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
A writer is always working with whatever she's managed to store in the brainpan or puzzle out about the world. — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
I can't begin to predict how news will be delivered to readers in, say, 100 years. But I do know one thing… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
People ask me all the time if I'm from a family of writers. The literal short answer is no, but my father… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
“Who says great literatue has to be written by men? Who says great literature has to be about scary, creepy stuff like… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
The beginning and the end are never really the journey of discovery for me. It is the middle that remains a puzzle… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
I think books in which people are really happy and things are going well are probably the most challenging novels there are to write,… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
Trying to be perfect may be inevitable for people who are smart and ambitious and interested in the world and its good opinion...What is… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
Sometimes change came all at once, with a sound like a fire taking hold of dry wood and paper, with a roar that rose… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
knowledge of our own mortality is the greatest gift God ever gives us. — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
You teach your 16-year-old with your heart in your mouth to be a good driver and none of that makes any difference when some… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
Every reader, I suspect, has a book like this somewhere in his or her past, a book that seemed to hold within it, at… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
“I’ve finally recognized my body for what it is: a personality-delivery system, designed expressly to carry my character from place to place, now and… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
“In England I am always madam; I arrived too late to ever be a miss. In New York I have only been madamed once,… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
“Yet there was always in me, even when I was very small, the sense that I ought to be somewhere else. And wander I… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
