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. – 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
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
I remember leaving the hospital – thinking, ‘Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don’t know beans about babies! I don’t have a license to do this.’ We’re just amateurs. – Anne Tyler
The Amateur Marriage grew out of the reflection that of all the opportunities to show differences in character, surely an unhappy marriage must be the richest. – Anne Tyler
In real life I avoid all parties altogether, but on paper I can mingle with the best of them. – Anne Tyler
My writing day has grown shorter as I’ve aged, although it seems to produce the same number of pages. – 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
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
My decision to start a new one is just that, a decision, since I never get inspirations. – Anne Tyler
For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood. – Anne Tyler
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. – Anne Tyler
While armchair travelers dream of going places, traveling armchairs dream of staying put. – Anne Tyler
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. – Anne Tyler
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. – Anne Tyler
I’ll write maybe one long paragraph describing the events, then a page or two breaking the events into chapters, and then reams of pages delving into my characters. After that, I’m ready to begin. – Anne Tyler
Time, in general, has always been a central obsession of mine – what it does to people, how it can constitute a plot all on its own. So naturally, I am interested in old age. – Anne Tyler
I think it must be very hard to be one of the new young writers who are urged to put themselves forward when it may be the last thing on earth they’d be good at. – Anne Tyler