Ann Beattie

“I could name a few songs and say exactly what summer they came out and what boy I thought I was in love with when I was fourteen years old, but I think that music used to be really more a part of the culture when people went out dancing in a different way than they do now.”

“There is some reason, obviously, that you are drawn to your material, but the way in which you explore it might come to be quite different from what you would expect.”

“If you could have a book called My Favorite Six Stories, I don't think I'd have trouble doing that.”

“Falling in Place was meant to be very much rooted in a place and time, and music was a part of that.”

“You have to figure out who the right person is to tell the story. And often, people who are very self-aware will only sound as if they are pontificating if they tell the story.”

“Nobody can assume that, to a writer, everything is off-limits.”

“I think that I'm serious, but I don't think that I'm inordinately bleak.”

“I've spent my life supporting myself.”

“Women are obviously much more discriminated against than men in many ways.”

“I feel that these stories are being written to articulate certain confusions and disappointments, and I do mean to shake up the reader, and I do hope they're on target.”