Quotes from Anne Tyler

For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood.

My family can always tell when I'm well into a novel because the meals get very crummy.

But what I hope for from a book - either one that I write or one that I read - is transparency. I want the story to shine through. I don't want to think of the writer.

I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them.

It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.

I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get

People always call it luck when you've acted more sensibly than they have.

It is not how much you love someone, but who you are when you are with him.

One sad thing about this world is that the acts that take the most out of you are usually the ones that people will never know about. (from 'Celestial Navigation')

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.

It's true that writing is 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.

It struck her all at once that dealing with other human beings was an awful lot of work.

People who hadn't suffered a loss yet struck me as not quite grown up.

The unsatisfying thing about practicing restraint was that nobody knew you were practicing it.)

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!

There is no sound more peaceful than rain on the roof, if you're safe asleep in someone else's house.

It's like the grief has been covered over with some kind of blanket. It's still there, but the sharpest edges are .. muffled, sort of. Then, ever now and then, I lift the corner of the blanket just to check, and .. whoa! Like a knife! I'm not sure that will ever change.

He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller.

Bravest thing about people is how they go on loving mortal beings after finding out there's such a thing as dying.

But if you never did anything you couldn't undo you'd end up doing nothing at all.

If I waited till I felt like writing, I'd never write at all.

When you have children, you're obligated to live.

The trouble with dying," she'd told Jeannie once, "is that you don't get to see how everything turns out. You won't know the ending.

Houses need humans," Red said. "You all should know that. Oh, sure, humans cause wear and tear—scuffed floors and stopped-up toilets and such—but that's nothing compared to what happens when a house is left on its own. It's like the heart goes out of it. It sags, it slumps, it starts to lean toward the ground.