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Ann Beattie Quotes

Jane remembers those years, though, as if they had been [a movie]--in part because her friends...always talked about everything as if it was over (Remember last night?), while holding out the possibil...

Ann Beattie

Jane remembers those years, though, as if they had been [a movie]--in part because her friends...always talked about everything as if it was over (Remember last night?), while holding out the possibil...

Tags: ordinariness, ordinary life

Italics provide a wonderful advantage: you see, right away, that the words are in a rush. When something exists at a slant, you can't help but consider irony.

Ann Beattie

Italics provide a wonderful advantage: you see, right away, that the words are in a rush. When something exists at a slant, you can't help but consider irony.

About Author
Ann Beattie (born September 8, 1947) is an American novelist and short story writer. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the short story form.

It's not about having things figured out, or about communicating with other people, trying to make them understand what you understand. It's about a chicken dinner at a drive-in. A soft pillow. Things...

Ann Beattie

It's not about having things figured out, or about communicating with other people, trying to make them understand what you understand. It's about a chicken dinner at a drive-in. A soft pillow. Things...

Tags: connection, love, understanding

Nothing is so lovely as a quietly snoring dog and some evening Brahms, as you sit in a comfortably overstuffed chair with your feet on the footstool.

Ann Beattie

Nothing is so lovely as a quietly snoring dog and some evening Brahms, as you sit in a comfortably overstuffed chair with your feet on the footstool.

Tags: dogs, evening, music, nighttime, relaxing

This is a story, told the way you say stories should be told: Somebody grew up, fell in love, and spent a winter with her lover in the country. This, of course, is the barest outline, and futile to di...

Ann Beattie

This is a story, told the way you say stories should be told: Somebody grew up, fell in love, and spent a winter with her lover in the country. This, of course, is the barest outline, and futile to di...

Tags: memory

Then the auctioneer introduced himself [,,,,]. He started to speak into the microphone, a maddening, jammed-up sequence of words that crashed like bumper cars, after which everything sorted itself int...

Ann Beattie

Then the auctioneer introduced himself [,,,,]. He started to speak into the microphone, a maddening, jammed-up sequence of words that crashed like bumper cars, after which everything sorted itself int...

Startled starlings flew up out of the high grass, their black whorl a little tornado that did not touch down and therefore did no damage. They disappeared like a momentary perception above Yancey’s he...

Ann Beattie

Startled starlings flew up out of the high grass, their black whorl a little tornado that did not touch down and therefore did no damage. They disappeared like a momentary perception above Yancey’s he...

Might as well wear loafers without socks. Or take out a membership at the Reading Room on the path above the beach—the Reading Room, where the joke was that there wasn’t a book in the entire place.

Ann Beattie

Might as well wear loafers without socks. Or take out a membership at the Reading Room on the path above the beach—the Reading Room, where the joke was that there wasn’t a book in the entire place.

I wasn’t the sort of person who struck up conversations with strangers.

Ann Beattie

I wasn’t the sort of person who struck up conversations with strangers.

I guess that I have been thinking about how graceful you were, and although it is none of my business, I wondered whether you might not be paying a price for being that way. . . . People want to have...

Ann Beattie

I guess that I have been thinking about how graceful you were, and although it is none of my business, I wondered whether you might not be paying a price for being that way. . . . People want to have...

When we came in she had her chair sideways, without even looking up to know that it was us, that the doctors had said that sitting and staring at the snow was a waste of time; she should get involved...

Ann Beattie

When we came in she had her chair sideways, without even looking up to know that it was us, that the doctors had said that sitting and staring at the snow was a waste of time; she should get involved...

Tags: chilly scenes of winter

Hydrox cookies (what happened to them? They used to be so good. Sugar. No doubt they're leaving out sugar)

Ann Beattie

Hydrox cookies (what happened to them? They used to be so good. Sugar. No doubt they're leaving out sugar)

Clouds are poems, and the most moving poems linger on the blackboard so long, written in cursive so lovely, they also exist inside our fingertips. We never really erase them at the end of the lesson.

Ann Beattie

Clouds are poems, and the most moving poems linger on the blackboard so long, written in cursive so lovely, they also exist inside our fingertips. We never really erase them at the end of the lesson.

Clichés so often befall vain people.

Ann Beattie

Clichés so often befall vain people.

Tags: vain, vanity

Are you happy?I think I may be going to be happy.Remember, things do not force, forge or fashion. They fall into place

Ann Beattie

Are you happy?I think I may be going to be happy.Remember, things do not force, forge or fashion. They fall into place

Tags: fate, happiness, hope, life

The rum and Coke tastes just awful. He wishes he had Susan’s plain Coke.

Ann Beattie

The rum and Coke tastes just awful. He wishes he had Susan’s plain Coke.

Adirondacks must sit in those uncomfortable wooden chairs with the seats tilted so deeply backward that your knees sprang up like a ventriloquist’s dummy as the wood pressed into the back of your thig...

Ann Beattie

Adirondacks must sit in those uncomfortable wooden chairs with the seats tilted so deeply backward that your knees sprang up like a ventriloquist’s dummy as the wood pressed into the back of your thig...

When I lived in New York, not only did I have safety locks on the door but I had the music going, keeping the city at a distance, trying to find creative time and peace and so forth.

Ann Beattie

When I lived in New York, not only did I have safety locks on the door but I had the music going, keeping the city at a distance, trying to find creative time and peace and so forth.

Tags: peace