Quotes By Anne Tyler

I save the best of myself for novels, and I believe it shows.

My writing day has grown shorter as I've aged, although it seems to produce the same number of pages.

I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them - without a thought about publication - and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside.

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

It's true that it's a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them.

I do write long, long character notes - family background, history, details of appearance - much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage.

I spend about a year between novels.

She worded it a bit strongly, but I do find myself more and more struck by the differences between the sexes. To put it another way: All marriages are mixed marriages.

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

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've always thought a hotel ought to offer optional small animals. I mean a cat to sleep on your bed at night, or a dog of some kind to act pleased when you come in. You ever notice how a hotel room feels so lifeless?

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.

My decision to start a new one is just that, a decision, since I never get inspirations.

The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning.

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 read, I'm purely a reader.

I didn't really choose to write; I more or less fell into it.

Not until the final draft do I force myself to remember that I'm going to have to think about how it will affect other people.

The Amateur Marriage grew out of the reflection that of all the opportunities to show differences in character, surely an unhappy marriage must be the richest.

I was standing in the schoolyard waiting for a child when another mother came up to me. Have you found work yet? she asked. Or are you still just writing?

I've always enjoyed studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level.

I'm too shy for personal appearances, and I've found out that anytime I talk about my writing, I can't do any writing for many weeks afterward.

While armchair travelers dream of going places, traveling armchairs dream of staying put.

At most I'll spend three or four hours daily, sometimes less.

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

Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul - chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!

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.

For me, writing something down was the only road out.

In real life I avoid all parties altogether, but on paper I can mingle with the best of them.

I'll write maybe one long paragraph describing the events, then a page or two breaking the events into chapters, and then reams of pages delving into my characters. After that, I'm ready to begin.