Ann Patchett Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.

  Ann Patchett

  Jobs, Writing, Tea

  Ann Patchett (2004). “Truth and Beauty: A Friendship”

• Coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected.

  Ann Patchett

  Writing, Dots, Coming Back

  Ann Patchett (2009). “What Now?”, p.3, Harper Collins

• I will write my way into another life.

  Ann Patchett

  Writing, Way, Another Life

  Ann Patchett (2004). “Truth and Beauty: A Friendship”

• 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. Forgiveness, therefore, is key. I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. Again and again throughout the course of my life I will forgive myself.

  Ann Patchett

  Grief, Believe, Book

• Write because you love the art and the discipline, not because you're looking to sell something.

  Ann Patchett

  Art, Writing, Discipline

• Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.

  Ann Patchett

  Disappointment, Writing, Heart

  Ann Patchett (2013). “This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage”, p.27, Harper Collins

• If a person has never given writing a try, they assume that a brilliant idea is hard to come by. But really, even if it takes some digging, ideas are out there. Just open your eyes and look at the world. Writing the ideas down, it turns out, is the real trick.

  Ann Patchett

  Real, Writing, Eye

• Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.

  Ann Patchett

  Writing, World, Awful

  Ann Patchett (2013). “This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage”, p.60, A&C Black

• I was starting to wonder if I was ready to be a writer, not someone who won prizes, got published and was given the time and space to work, but someone who wrote as a course of life. Maybe writing wouldn't have any rewards. Maybe the salvation I would gain through work would only be emotional and intellectual. Wouldn't that be enough, to be a waitress who found an hour or two hidden in every day to write?

  Ann Patchett

  Writing, Emotional, Two

• Do you want to do this thing? Sit down and do it. Are you not writing? Keep sitting there. Does it not feel right? Keep sitting there. Think of yourself as a monk walking the path to enlightenment. Think of yourself as a high school senior wanting to be a neurosurgeon. Is it possible? Yes. Is there some shortcut? Not one I've found. Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.

  Ann Patchett

  Senior, School, Writing

  Ann Patchett (2013). “This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage”, p.60, A&C Black

• Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration?

  Ann Patchett

  Inspiration, Writing, Magic

  Ann Patchett (2013). “This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage”, p.28, A&C Black

• Our friendship was like our writing in some ways. It was the only thing that was interesting about our otherwise dull lives. We were better off when we were together. Together we were a small society of ambition and high ideals. We were tender and patient and kind. We were not like the world at all.

  Ann Patchett

  Writing, Ambition, Dull Life

  Ann Patchett (2004). “Truth and Beauty: A Friendship”

• People always say, "Can writing be taught?" I always think, I can teach you how to write a better sentence, how to do dialogue, how to do character, but I can't teach you how to be a decent person, and I can't teach you how to have something to say.

  Ann Patchett

  Writing, Character, Thinking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I craft everything in the beginning. I know where the characters are going before I start writing the book.

  Ann Patchett

  Book, Writing, Character

  Interview with Jeff Vasishta, www.interviewmagazine.com. August 16, 2016.

• Learn to write by writing

  Ann Patchett

  Writing

• I think people become consumed with selling a book when they need to be consumed with writing it.

  Ann Patchett

  Book, Writing, Thinking

• I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing.

  Ann Patchett

  Book, Writing, Want

  Ann Patchett (2013). “This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage”, p.30, A&C Black

• I can write for any magazine now, in any voice. I can do it in two hours, I could do it in my sleep, it's like writing a grocery list.

  Ann Patchett

  Writing, Sleep, Two

• My writing process has changed because it's harder to find uninterrupted time.

  Ann Patchett

  Writing, Process, Changed

  Interview with Jeff Vasishta, www.interviewmagazine.com. August 16, 2016.

• You can't be a good person when you're writing and a bad person to your husband or a bad friend.

  Ann Patchett

  Husband, Writing, Bad Friend

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• I tend to keep my ideas in my head. When I write something down in a notebook it's never centralized. There are too many notebooks floating around, but maybe that's a good thing.

  Ann Patchett

  Notebook, Writing, Ideas

  Interview with Jeff Vasishta, www.interviewmagazine.com. August 16, 2016.

• You can't say, "I'm too busy writing to be political." You are one person.

  Ann Patchett

  Writing, Political, Busy

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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

  Ann Patchett

  Book, Writing, Want

• The idea I pursue is the one that keeps coming back to me. The characters I think about as I'm falling asleep at night or when I'm driving to the grocery store are the one's I wind up writing about.

  Ann Patchett

  Fall, Writing, Character

  Interview with Jeff Vasishta, www.interviewmagazine.com. August 16, 2016.

• If you want to write and can't figure out how to do it, try this: Pick an amount of time to sit at your desk every day. Start with twenty minutes, say, and work up as quickly as possible to as much time as you can spare. Do you really want to write? Sit for two hours a day.

  Ann Patchett

  Writing, Two, Trying

  Ann Patchett (2013). “This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage”, p.52, A&C Black

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