Ann Patchett Quotes

I don't write for an audience, I don't think whether my book will sell, I don't sell it before I finish writing it.

Ann Patchett

• Writing
• Book

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Quotes to Explore

• I guess I went into journalism to save the world. I always felt through writing that I wanted to rotate the world slightly.

  

  Carl Honore
  • World
  • Writing
  • Journalism

• It takes me a long time writing books. It takes me about five years to write a book, and when I'm done, the last thing I want to do is to do it again.

  

  Naomi Klein
  • Time
  • Long
  • Writing

• I read my books to writing workshops and friends, and I'm often focussed just on keeping them entertained. I never think about marketing at all.

  

  Karen Joy Fowler
  • Writing
  • Friends
  • Marketing

• Every book I write, the media just keeps punching me in the face.

  

  Tama Janowitz
  • Book
  • Me
  • Face

• I think that the idea that I'm writing for many more people than I ever imagined has created a certain general responsibility that is literary and political. There's even pride involved, in not wanting to fall short of what I did before.

  

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  • People
  • Writing
  • Political

• I enjoy it too much - even if I knew I'd never get a book published, I would still write. I enjoy the experience of getting thoughts and ideas and plots and characters organised into this narrative framework.

  

  Iain Banks
  • Experience
  • Book
  • Ideas

• One of the pleasantest things about book writing is that sometimes it brings one in touch with old friends.

  

  Rachel Field
  • Writing
  • Book
  • Friends

• My highest point was the first thing I won, a short story competition in a women's magazine in the Eighties. It was the first time I'd had my writing validated, and the first thing I'd ever shown anyone else.

  

  Kate Atkinson
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Women

• People say, 'How does having kids change your writing? Do you see the world through their eyes?' No - you just become a faster songwriter... In the old days, you'd be like, 'Oh I'm gonna work on this song for a few days.'

  

  Eddie Vedder Pearl Jam
  • People
  • World
  • Work

• I've been writing about my boyhood, when I was a little kid back on my grandfather's farm where we didn't know about black widow spiders or all that stuff. But writing about that is so easy.

  

  Kary Mullis
  • Writing
  • Black
  • Grandfather

• I like collaboration because, first of all, I'm good at writing lyrics. I don't know how to make beats. I don't play instruments. I'm not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it's still a collaboration.

  

  Talib Kweli Black Star
  • Good
  • Writing
  • Lyrics

• I have no interest in writing, directing or producing.

  

  Ted Shackelford
  • Writing
  • Interest
  • Directing

• As a storyteller, when you're writing a movie and when you're directing, you want to keep people entertained. That's the whole point, right? It has to be entertaining.

  

  Fede Alvarez
  • People
  • Writing
  • Movie

• I have two daughters: One an open book, one a locked box. So the question of privacy is a challenging one. How much do kids need? How much should we give? How do we prepare them to live in a world where the very notion of privacy opens a generational chasm?

  

  Nancy Gibbs
  • World
  • Live
  • Book

• There's a market for mysteries for adults. That feeling of opening a book and delving inside and not coming out until you've closed the book.

  

  Kate Morton
  • Book
  • You
  • Feeling

• At 20 and 30, we are like travelers in a foreign country, reading the guide book to learn how to behave, to learn when the post office is open. Trivia looms important; critical issues fade into a pastel background, unrecognized.

  

  Karen DeCrow
  • Important
  • Country
  • Book

• Nobody's going to write a book about me, because nobody's going to find anything worth writing a book about.

  

  Jack Kent Cooke
  • Writing
  • Book
  • Me

• I'm a pretty easygoing person, and it bleeds into the music. Even if I'm writing the most personal song, it's not going to come out totally serious; there's always a little tongue in the cheek.

  

  Mac DeMarco
  • Music
  • Writing
  • Pretty

• Once I opened a book, I felt compelled to finish it. I was drawn into a world, and I had to know what would happen, how it would end.

  

  Marissa Moss
  • World
  • Book

• The most successful terrorist group in the United States for almost 70 years was the Ku Klux Klan. They hated Catholics, Jews, and blacks. They were prone to violence.

  

  Pete Hamill
  • Violence

• African-Americans are not a monolithic group. So, we tend to talk about the black community, the black culture, the African-American television viewing audience, but there are just as many facets of us as there are other cultures.

  

  Malcolm-Jamal Warner
  • American
  • Black
  • Culture

• I don't think I'm going to be back on 'This Is Us.' I think that Uncle Ricky had his moment; he did what he had to do.

  

  Brian Tyree Henry
  • Uncle

• At what point in time can our government fire someone whose gross negligence left four Americans dead in Benghazi?

  

  Jeff Duncan
  • Time
  • Fire

• I don't write for an audience, I don't think whether my book will sell, I don't sell it before I finish writing it.

  

  Ann Patchett
  • Writing
  • Book