Quotes By Anne Tyler

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 good novels celebrate the mystery in ordinary life, and summing it all up in psychological terms strips the mystery away.

I think it must be very hard to be one of the new young writers who are urged to put themselves forward when it may be the last thing on earth they'd be good at.

If I waited till I felt like writing, I'd never write at all.

The hardest novel to write was Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.

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

I just want to be told a story, and I want to believe I'm living that story, and I don't give a thought to influences or method or any other writerly concerns.

For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood.

My stories are never quite good enough.

I can never tell ahead of time which book will give me trouble - some balk every step of the way, others seem to write themselves - but certainly the mechanics of writing, finding the time and the psychic space, are easier now that my children are grown.

People always call it luck when you've acted more sensibly than they have.

I forget a book as soon as I finish writing it, which is not always a good thing.

I don't want to say I hear voices; well, actually I do hear voices, but I don't think it's supernatural. I think it's just that when characters are given enough texture and backbone, then lo and behold, they stand on their own.

And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it's not supposed to be.

None of my own experiences ever finds its way into my work. However, the stages of my life - motherhood, middle age, etc. - often influence my subject matter.