Quotes by Ann Patchett

He realized now he was only just beginning to see the full extent to which it was his destiny to follow, to walk blindly into fates he could never understand. In fate there was reward, in turning over ones heart to God there was a magnificence that lay beyond description. At the moment one is sure that all is lost, look at what is gained!

For the most part wisdom comes in chips rather than blocks. You have to be willing to gather them constantly, and from sources you never imagined to be probable. No one chip gives you the answer for everything. No one chip stays in the same place throughout your entire life. The secret is to keep adding voices, adding ideas, and moving things around as you put together your life. If you’re lucky, putting together your life is a process that will last through every single day you’re alive.

Hope is a horrible thing, you know. I dont know who decided to package hope as a virtue because its not. Its a plague. Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody just keeps pulling it and pulling it.

Hope is a horrible thing, you know. Its a plague. Its like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and someone just keep pulling it and pulling it.STATE OF WONDER

Writing is a job, a talent, but its also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.

I was starting to wonder if I was ready to be a writer, not someone who won prizes, got published and was given the time and space to work, but someone who wrote as a course of life. Maybe writing wouldnt have any rewards. Maybe the salvation I would gain through work would only be emotional and intellectual. Wouldnt that be enough, to be a waitress who found an hour or two hidden in every day to write?

Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.

The more we are willing to separate from distraction and step into the open arms of boredom, the more writing will get on the page.

It turns out that the distance from head to hand, from wafting butterfly to entomological specimen, is achieved through regular, disciplined practice. What begins as something like a dream will in fact stay a dream forever unless you have the tools and the discipline to bring it out.

The journey from the head to the hand is perilous and lined with bodies. It is the road on which nearly everyone who wants to write—and many of the people who do write—get lost.

Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft. If you want to write, practice writing.

When well told, a story captured the subtle movement of change. If a novel was a map of a country, a story was the bright silver pin that marked the crossroads.

Listen she said, everything ends, every single relationship you will ever have in your lifetime is going to end.... Ill die, youll die, youll get tired of each other. You dont always know how its going to happen, but it is always going to happen. So stop trying to make everything permanent, it doesnt work. I want you to go out there and find some nice man you have no intention of spending the rest of your life with. You can be very, very happy with people you arent going to marry.

Just because things hadnt gone the way I had planned didnt necessarily mean they had gone wrong.

Whenever I saw her, I felt like I had been living in another country, doing moderately well in another language, and then she showed up speaking English and suddenly I could speak with all the complexity and nuance that I hadnt realized was gone. With Lucy I was a native speaker.

The entire time Albie followed Beverly around the house doing what the children referred to as “the stripper soundtra

Its easier to love a woman when you cant understand a word shes saying.

The women in the kitchen took turns making a fuss over the baby, acting like it was their job to keep her entertained until the Magi arrived. But the baby wasnt entertained. Her blue eyes were glazed over. She was staring into the middle distance, tired of everything. All this rush to make sandwiches and take in presents for a girl who was not yet a year old.

The women in the kitchen took turns making a fuss over the baby, acting like it was their job to keep her entertained until the Magi arrived. But the baby wasnt entertained. Her blue eyes were glazed over. She was staring into the middle distance, tired of everything. All this rush to make sandwiches and take in presents for a girl who was not year a year old.

Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. … It is a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are the spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the worlds greatest soprano. Not everyone can be the artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see.