Anne Tyler

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

“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.”

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

“People imagine that missing a loved one works kind of like missing cigarettes. The first day is really hard but the next day is less hard and so forth, easier and easier the longer you go on. But instead it’s like missing water. Every day, you notice the person’s absence more.”

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

“It struck her all at once that dealing with other human beings was an awful lot of work.”

“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!”

“Don't count on me to take you in because I'm angry. I'm angry at you for leading us on such a song and dance all these years, not just these few years but all the years, skipping all those holidays and staying away from beach trips and missing Mom and Dad's thirtieth anniversary and their thirty-fifth and Jeannie's baby and not attending my wedding that time or even sending a card or calling to wish me well. But most of all Denny, most of all: I will never forgive you for consuming every last little drop of our parents' attention and leaving nothing for the rest of us.”

“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.”

“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.”

“She loved them so much that she felt a kind of hollowness on the inner surface of her arms whenever she looked at them- an ache of longing to pull them close and hold them tight against her.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”