Anne Tyler Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“Time, in general, has always been a central obsession of mine - what it does to people, how it can constitute a plot all on its own. So naturally, I am interested in old age.”

“I remember leaving the hospital - thinking, 'Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don't know beans about babies! I don't have a license to do this.' We're just amateurs.”

“I expect that any day now, I will have said all I have to say; I'll have used up all my characters, and then I'll be free to get on with my real life.”

“It seems to me that since I've had children, I've grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.”

“I consciously try to end my novels at a point where I won't have to wonder about my characters ever again.”

“My family can always tell when I'm well into a novel because the meals get very crummy.”

“I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining it too closely.”

“It seems to me that good novels celebrate the mystery in ordinary life, and summing it all up in psychological terms strips the mystery away.”

“But what I hope for from a book - either one that I write or one that I read - is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.”

“When I'm working on something, I proceed as if no one else will ever read it.”