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"There's an expectation these days that novels - like any other consumer product - should be made on a production line, with one dropping from the conveyor belt every couple of years."
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"Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack."

"Some people won't go the extra mile, and then on their birthday, when no one makes a fuss, they feel neglected and bitter."

"The undertone of miracle focused gospel is that people will want to get something from nothing."

"Expectations create and shape reality."

"Not the action, but the expectation creates results."

"Expectation creates the reality."

"Through our expectations, we violently expand and try to fill the world with our proofs of worth."

"Live without expectations. Don't set parameters on your life by telling yourself that something can only be enjoyed if it is a certain way. Allow life to surprise you. Keep an open mind and enjoy all of life's treasures."

"The problem with many people is that they would plant a pear tree and expect it to bear some mango fruit."

"I myself have never been enchanted by the dream of the white wedding, and, heaven help us, the expectation that this exquisitely catered event should be 'the happiest moment' of one's life."
Explore more quotes by Donna Tartt


"Taking on challenging projects is the way that one grows and extends one's range as a writer, one's technical command, so I consider the time well-spent."


"To really be centered and to really work well and to think about the kinds of things that I need to think about, I need to spend large amounts of time alone."


"Richard Papen: As it happened, I knew Gartrell. He was a bad painter and a vicious gossip, with a vocabulary composed almost entirely of obscenities, gutteral verbs, and the world "postmodernist."


"I'm not sure whay I've been drawn to this subject, except that murder is a subject that has always drawn people for as long as people have been telling stories."


"On the other hand, I mean, that is what writers have always been supposed to do, was to rely on their own devices and to - I mean, writing is a lonely business."


"Though Julian could be marvelously kind in difficult circumstances of all sorts, I sometimes got the feeling that he was less pleased by kindness itself than by the elegance of the gesture."


"We don't like to admit it, but the idea of losing control is one that fascinates controlled people such as ourselves more than almost anything. All truly civilized people " the ancients no less than us " have civilized themselves through the wilful repression of the old, animal self."


"When we are sad-at least I am like this-it can be comforting to cling to familiar objects, to the things that don't change."


"In order for a long piece of work to engage a novelist over an extended period of time, it has to deal with questions that you find very important, that you're trying to work out."
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