Anne Tyler quotes

Anne Tyler is an acclaimed American novelist known for her insightful portrayals of family life and ordinary people. Her works often explore themes of love, loss, and the complexities of human relationships. She has won numerous literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Here are 64 of her quotes:

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

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.

Anne Tyler

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

Anne Tyler

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.

Anne Tyler

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!

Anne Tyler

It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.

Anne Tyler

I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get.

Anne Tyler

It is not how much you love someone, but who you are when you are with him.

Anne Tyler

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?

Anne Tyler

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

Anne Tyler

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

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.

Anne Tyler

I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them.

Anne Tyler

There is no sound more peaceful than rain on the roof, if you're safe asleep in someone else's house.

Anne Tyler

I'm falling into disrepair.

Anne Tyler

One sad thing about this world is that the acts that take the most out of you are usually the ones that people will never know about. (from 'Celestial Navigation')

Anne Tyler

People who hadn't suffered a loss yet struck me as not quite grown up.

Anne Tyler

When you have children, you're obligated to live.

Anne Tyler

Bravest thing about people is how they go on loving mortal beings after finding out there's such a thing as dying.

Anne Tyler

I read so I can live more than one life in more than one place.

Anne Tyler

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person. (Anne Tyler)

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?

Anne Tyler

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.

Anne Tyler

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

Anne Tyler

But if you never did anything you couldn't undo you'd end up doing nothing at all.

Anne Tyler

Previous
1 (Current)
2
3
Next

Anne Tyler

Occupation: American Novelist
Born: October 25, 1941
Quotes count: 64
Wikipedia: Anne Tyler

Related authors

Margaret Atwood 547

Canadian Poet

Howard Jacobson 7

British Author

Jeanette Winterson 280

British Novelist

Marilynne Robinson 72

American Novelist

Ali Smith 31

Scottish Writer

Jane Smiley 106

American Writer

Sarah Waters 31

Welsh Novelist

Barbara Kingsolver 159

American Author

Annie Proulx 31

American Journalist

Kristin Hannah 43

American Writer