Ann Patchett

“...was an elegant woman in a city of so many thousands of elegant women...”

— Ann Patchett

“He was a very small man, both in stature and girth, who had been chosen as a running mate as much for…

— Ann Patchett

He doesn’t know to want for more because nothing in his life has been as much as this...on that night he thinks…

— Ann Patchett

The thing you can count on in life is that Tennessee will always be scorching hot in August.

— Ann Patchett

Maybe that was the definition of life everlasting: the belief that the next generation would carry your work forward.

— Ann Patchett

Sometimes if there's a book you really want to read, you have to write it yourself.

— Ann Patchett

I'd like to read all of Proust.

— 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

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

“It's like a big circle. I've gone on a get-a-man crusade, but so far it's been a disaster and I'm feeling as…

— Ann Patchett

“He wondered if this was what people were doing—were they making dinners with their family, holding babies, recounting days? Was this what…

— Ann Patchett

“Time could barely pull the second hand forward on the clock...”

— Ann Patchett

“His own daughters constantly presented him with a mathematical impossibility, one minute running around the house wearing pajamas covered in images of…

— Ann Patchett

I think of Nashville as a very natural place. We're easy going, we are ourselves. There isn't a lot of preening or…

— Ann Patchett

“Over the years I have come to realize that I write the book I want to read, the one I can't find…

— Ann Patchett

There was such an incredible logic to kissing, such a metal-to-magnet pull between two people that it was a wonder that they…

— Ann Patchett

“Forgiveness. The ability to forgive oneself. Stop here for a few breaths and think about this because it is the key to…

— Ann Patchett

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

— Ann Patchett

“If what a person wants is his life, he tends to be quiet about wanting anything else. Once the life begins to…

— Ann Patchett

The '70s were a different time as far as parenting was concerned. People left their kids in the car with the windows…

— Ann Patchett

“It was my own special brand of insanity that made me think the trials of Lucy's life could somehow be eased by…

— Ann Patchett

We have different kinds of intimacy with many, many people. I'm disappointed by well-written novels that only deal with two or three…

— Ann Patchett

“The part when they are together for a while, the two of them, before things go wrong. The way things ended always…

— Ann Patchett

Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected, how one decision…

— Ann Patchett

In my experience, surgeons tend to need boatloads of attention.

— Ann Patchett