Ann Patchett Quotes

Quotes about:

• Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.

  Ann Patchett

  Sight, Goal, Focus

  Ann Patchett (2011). “State of Wonder”, p.246, Bloomsbury Publishing

  54 Copy quote

• Using your imagination is the one time in life you can really go anywhere.

  Ann Patchett

  Imagination, One Time

  5 Copy quote

• No matter how much we love a book, the experience of reading it isn't complete until we can give it to someone who will love it as much as we do

  Ann Patchett

  Book, Reading, Giving

  38 Copy quote

• 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”

  58 Copy quote

• For the most part wisdom comes in chips rather than blocks. You have to be willing to gather them constantly, and from sources you never imagined to be probable. No one chip gives you the answer for everything. No one chip stays in the same place throughout your entire life. The secret is to keep adding voices, adding ideas, and moving things around as you put together your life. If you’re lucky, putting together your life is a process that will last through every single day you’re alive.

  Ann Patchett

  Block, Moving, Ideas

  33 Copy quote

• 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

  33 Copy quote

• Reading fiction not only develops our imagination and creativity, it gives us the skills to be alone. It gives us the ability to feel empathy for people we've never met, living lives we couldn't possibly experience for ourselves, because the book puts us inside the character's skin.

  Ann Patchett

  Live Life, Book, Reading

  37 Copy quote

• Happiness compresses time, makes it dense and bright, pocketsized.

  Ann Patchett

  Dense

  Ann Patchett (2012). “Run”, p.16, Bloomsbury Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• Show kindness whenever possible. Show it to the people in front of you, the people coming up behind you, and the people with whom you are running neck and neck. It will vastly improve the quality of your own life, the lives of others, and the state of the world.

  Ann Patchett

  Running, Kindness, People

  9 Copy quote

• Just because things hadn't gone the way I had planned didn't necessarily mean they had gone wrong.

  Ann Patchett

  Life, Mean, Gone

  Ann Patchett (2008). “What Now?”, Harpercollins

  17 Copy quote

• You are always someones favorite unfolding story

  Ann Patchett

  Stories, Unfolding

  22 Copy quote

• Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings. Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.

  Ann Patchett

  Reading, Character, Mean

  "And the Winner Isn’t..." by Ann Patchett, www.nytimes.com. April 17, 2012.

  32 Copy quote

• I think the best vacation is the one that relieves me of my own life for a while and then makes me long for it again.

  Ann Patchett

  Thinking, Vacation, Long

  Ann Patchett (2013). “This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage”, p.201, A&C Black

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  20 Copy quote

• Everyone knows everything eventually.

  Ann Patchett

  Knows

  Ann Patchett (2011). “State of Wonder”, p.161, Bloomsbury Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined.

  Ann Patchett

  Ideas, Work Out, Sometimes

  13 Copy quote

• If you're trying to find out what's coming next, turn off everything you own that has an OFF switch and listen.

  Ann Patchett

  Trying, Next, Turns

  Ann Patchett (2008). “What Now?”, Harpercollins

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  32 Copy quote

• There can be something cruel about people who have had good fortune. They equate it with personal goodness.

  Ann Patchett

  People, Goodness, Fortune

  Ann Patchett (2013). “This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage”, p.67, A&C Black

  13 Copy quote

• You throw a person in the river and then make a spectacle of jumping in to save them.

  Ann Patchett

  Jumping, Rivers, Jumping In

  Ann Patchett (2012). “State of Wonder”, p.306, A&C Black

  5 Copy quote

• The quality of gifts depends on the sincerity of the giver.

  Ann Patchett

  Quality, Sincerity, Giver

  7 Copy quote

• The love between humans is the thing that nails us to the earth.

  Ann Patchett

  Love Is, Nails, Earth

  Ann Patchett (2013). “This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage”, p.268, A&C Black

  5 Copy quote

• But we cannot unbraid the story of another person’s life and take out all the parts that don’t suit our purposes and put forth only the ones that do.

  Ann Patchett

  Purpose, Stories, Suits

  Ann Patchett (2011). “State of Wonder”, p.232, A&C Black

  5 Copy quote

• One must not be shy where language is concerned.

  Ann Patchett

  Shy, Language, Concerned

  Ann Patchett (2011). “State of Wonder”, p.198, Bloomsbury Publishing

  6 Copy quote

• You can't always trust what you think, what you know ... but you can always trust your nature.

  Ann Patchett

  Thinking, Knows

  Ann Patchett (2004). “The Magician's Assistant”, p.172, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

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