Quotes by Anne Tyler

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!
– Anne Tyler
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.
– Anne Tyler
While armchair travelers dream of going places, traveling armchairs dream of staying put.
– Anne Tyler
I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get.
– Anne Tyler
People always call it luck when you've acted more sensibly than they have.
– Anne Tyler
It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.
– 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.
– Anne Tyler
The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning.
– Anne Tyler
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.
– Anne Tyler
My family can always tell when I'm well into a novel because the meals get very crummy.
– Anne Tyler
For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood.
– Anne Tyler
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.
– Anne Tyler