Ann Patchett Quotes

94 quotes in 1379 categories

• Praise and criticism seem to me to operate exactly on the same level. If you get a great review, it's really thrilling for about ten…
• Learn to write by writing
• Society was nothing but a long, dull dinner party conversation in which one was forced to speak to one's partner on both the left and…
• One must not be shy where language is concerned.
• But we cannot unbraid the story of another person’s life and take out all the parts that don’t suit our purposes and put forth only…
• If someone loves you for what you can do then it's flattering, but why do you love them? If someone loves you for who you…
• It's easier to love a woman when you can't understand a word she's saying.
• Write because you love the art and the discipline, not because you're looking to sell something.
• It's always better to have too much to read than not enough.
• I was very influenced by The Magic Mountain. It's a book that had a huge impact on me. I loved that as a shape for…
• Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft.
• I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing.
• Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.
• Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected.
• Show kindness whenever possible. Show it to the people in front of you, the people coming up behind you, and the people with whom you…
• I believe that, more than anything else, this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers.…
• Staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar…
• Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration?
• You can’t control what other people think about your art. Think about the part of yourself that you can control, which is your ability to…
• I think of Nashville as a very natural place. We're easy going, we are ourselves. There isn't a lot of preening or trying to impress.…

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