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"For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood."
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"There's something wrong with a mother who washes out a measuring cup with soap and water after she's only measured water in it."

"An excellent mother knows she has the beautiful life, and she is a big time programmer."

"I tell you, families are definitely the training ground for forgiveness."

"Don't say negative things about your spouse and children."
Explore more quotes by Anne Tyler

"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'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."

"My decision to start a new one is just that, a decision, since I never get inspirations."

"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 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 was standing in the schoolyard waiting for a child when another mother came up to me. Have you found work yet? she asked. Or are you still just writing?"

"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."

"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."

"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."
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