Quotes from Ann Patchett

In this life we love who we love. There were some stories in which facts were very nearly irrelevant.

I will go and speak at rotary clubs. I will go and speak at schools. I'm so much in the community, but in a way that I love. It's been such a positive thing.

If you've had good gin on a hot day in Southern California with the people you love, you forget Nebraska. The two things cannot coexist. The stronger, better of the two wins.

I was very influenced by The Magic Mountain. It's a book that had a huge impact on me. I loved that as a shape for a novel: put a bunch of people in a beautiful place, give them all tuberculosis, make them all stay in a fur sleeping bag for several years and see what happens.

Writing is an amazing place to hide, to go into the rabbit hole, and pull the trap door down over your head.

If someone loves you for what you can do then it's flattering, but why do you love them? If someone loves you for who you are then they have to know you, which means you have to know them.

The love between humans is the thing that nails us to the earth.

Sometimes love does not have the most honorable beginnings, and the endings, the endings will break you in half. It's everything in between we live for.

Love is a rebellious bird that no one can tame

Love was action. It came to you. It was not a choice.

I love a large cast of characters. That's the way life is: it's flooded with people and we keep them all straight.

I love telling people what to read. It's my favorite thing in the world, to buy books and force books on people, take bad books away from people, give them better books.

I have been shown so much kindness in my life, so for me to write books about good, kind people seems completely natural.

Sometimes if there's a book you really want to read, you have to write it yourself.

If what a person wants is his life, he tends to be quiet about wanting anything else. Once the life begins to seem secure, one feels the freedom to complain.

I believe, in my better moments, that there is a plan and things go not the way we want them to but the way they should.

No one tells the truth to people they don't actually know, and if they do it is a horrible trait. Everyone wants something smaller, something neater than the truth.

People gave me such a bad time about wanting a baby. I didn't want a baby, and I still don't. I wanted a dog.

I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing.

If anybody had shown me the paperwork for how my life was going to look in five years, I would have said, "No. That is not where I want to go."

I believe I can solve others' problems. It's great when it works, but for the most part, it's very unappealing.

The kind of love that offers its life so easily, so stupidly is always the love that is not returned.

I think it's brain chemistry. I'm a positive, cheerful person, and I think it is absolutely the luck of the draw. I think the life I have had has come largely from the chemicals in my head. I see my life as good, and I think, a lot of times, if you see your life as good, then that's how it turns out.

I had a real computer solitaire problem. I'd gotten to the point where I had to win a game before I could write, and each time I got up to get a cup of water, I had to win a game. It was a nightmare.