Quotes from Anne Tyler

But it has occurred to me, on occasion, that our memories of our loved ones might not be the point. Maybe the point is their memories—all that they take away with them.

Beware against the sweet person, for sugar has no nutrition.'

Liam really enjoyed a good movie. He found it restful to watch people's conversations without being expected to join in. But he always felt sort of lonesome if he didn't have someone next to him to nudge in the ribs at the good parts.

I'm falling into disrepair

That was one of the worst things about losing your wife, I found: your wife is the very person you want to discuss it all with.

He was wondering if there was some cryptic, cultish mark on his door that told all the crazy people he'd have trouble saying no.

She collected and polished resentments as if it were some kind of hobby.

It wasn't what you said, he told her.It was how I felt when you said it.

You could really feel physically wounded if someone hurt your feelings badly enough.

he thought of dying as a kind of adventure, something new that he hadn't yet experienced. Like an unusual vacation trip.

I always think it's a good sign when a man likes cats. It shows he doesn't feel the need to be in constant control of things.

Smells could bring a person back clearer than pictures even could.

And she thought what a clean, simple life she would have led if it weren't for love.

She had always assumed that when she was old, she would have total confidence, finally. But look at her: still uncertain. In many ways she was more uncertain now than she had been as a girl. And often when she heard herself speaking she was appalled at how chirpy she sounded—how empty-headed and superficial, as if she'd somehow fallen into the Mom role in some shallow TV sitcom. What on earth had happened to her?

She remembered the feel of wind on summer nights - how it billows through the house and wafts the curtains and smells of tar and roses

The thing about caller ID is," Red said, more or less to himself, "it seems a little like cheating. A person should be willing to take his chances, answering the phone.

The very thing that attracts you to someone can end up putting you off.

No couple buying wedding rings wants to be reminded that someday one of them will have to accept the other one's ring from a nurse or an undertaker.

For years, she had been in mourning for the way she had let her life slip through her fingers. Given another chance, she'd told herself, she would take more care to experience it. But lately, she was finding that she had experienced it after all and just forgotten, and now it was returning to her.

You know why I like to talk to you, Delia? You never interrupt with your experiences. Not jiggling your foot till you get a chance to jump in with your life history.

I used to toy with the notion that when we die we find out what our lives have amounted to, finally. I'd never imagined that we could find that out when somebody else dies.

Sometimes he fantasised that at the end of his life, he would be shown a home movie of all the roads he had not taken, and where they would have led.

You wake in the morning, you're feeling fine, but all at once you think, "Something's not right. Something's off somewhere; what is it?" And then you remember that it's your child—whichever one is unhappy.

Oh, a French braid," Greta said. "That's it. And then when she undid them, her hair would still be in ripples, little leftover squiggles, for hours and hours afterward." "Yes…" "Well," David said, "that's how families work, too. You think you're free of them, but you're never really free; the ripples are crimped in forever.