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"When I read, I'm purely a reader."
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"What a vast fertility of pleasure books hold for me! I went in and found the table laden with books. I looked in and sniffed them all. I could not resist carrying this one off and broaching it. I think I could happily live here and read forever."
"It would be a good thing to buy books if one could also buy the time to read them, but one usually confuses the purchase of books with the acquisition of their contents."
"A learned man is a sedentary, concentrated solitary enthusiast, who searches through books to discover some particular grain of truth upon which he has set his heart. If the passion for reading conquers him, his gains dwindle and vanish between his fingers. A reader, on the other hand, must check the desire for learning at the outset; if knowledge sticks to him well and good, but to go in pursuit of it, to read on a system, to become a specialist or an authority, is very apt to kill what suits us to consider the more humane passion for pure and disinterested reading."
"If time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all."
"And every book, you find, has its own social group--friends of its own it wants to introduce you to, like a party in the library that need never, ever end."
"There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it."
Explore more quotes by 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."
"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."
"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."
"I expect that any day now, I will have said all I have to say; I'll have used up all my characters, and then I'll be free to get on with my real life."
"I do write long, long character notes - family background, history, details of appearance - much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage."
"I can never tell ahead of time which book will give me trouble - some balk every step of the way, others seem to write themselves - but certainly the mechanics of writing, finding the time and the psychic space, are easier now that my children are grown."
"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!"
"None of my own experiences ever finds its way into my work. However, the stages of my life - motherhood, middle age, etc. - often influence my subject matter."
"I've always thought a hotel ought to offer optional small animals. I mean a cat to sleep on your bed at night, or a dog of some kind to act pleased when you come in. You ever notice how a hotel room feels so lifeless?"
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