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Hope Is A Horrible Thing, You Know. I Don't Know Who Decided To Package Hope As A Virtue Because It's Not. It's A Plague. Hope Is Like Walking Around With A Fishhook In Your Mouth And Somebody Just Keeps Pulling It And Pulling It.

-Ann Patchett

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Hope Is A Horrible

Ann Patchett

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Hope Is A Horrible Thing, You Know. I Don't Know Who Decided To Package Hope As A Virtue Because It's Not. It's A Plague. Hope Is Like Walking Around With A Fishhook In Your Mouth And Somebody Just Keeps Pulling It And Pulling It.

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It Was Too Much Work To Remember Things You Might Not Have Again, And So One By One They Opened Up Their Hands And Let Them Go.

Writing Is A Job, A Talent, But It's Also The Place To Go In Your Head. It Is The Imaginary Friend You Drink Your Tea With In The Afternoon.

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If You're Trying To Find Out What's Coming Next, Turn Off Everything You Own That Has An Off Switch And Listen.

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Love Was Action. It Came To You. It Was Not A Choice.

Using Your Imagination Is The One Time In Life You Can Really Go Anywhere.

The Timing Of The Electrical Failure Seemed Dramatic And Perfectly Correct, As If The Lights Had Said, "you Have No Need For Sight. Listen.

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I Am The Person Who Is Appropriating Stories That Are Not Mine And Turning Them Into A Book.

Thank God Roxane Coss Had Not Fallen In Love With One Of The Russians. She Doubted They Could Make It Up The Stairs Without Stopping For A Cigarette And Telling At Least One Loud Story That No One Could Understand.

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That's The Way I Work. I Get It All Plotted In My Mind, And Then I Write It Down.

I Read Books I Hate All The Time, And I Don't Mention Them Or Talk About Them.

I Believe That, More Than Anything Else, This Grief Of Constantly Having To Face Down Our Own Inadequacies Is What Keeps People From Being Writers. Forgiveness, Therefore, Is Key. I Can't Write The Book I Want To Write, But I Can And Will Write The Book I Am Capable Of Writing. Again And Again Throughout The Course Of My Life I Will Forgive Myself.

But These Last Months Had Turned Him Around And Now Gen Saw There Could Be As Much Virtue In Letting Go Of What You Knew As There Had Ever Been In Gathering New Information. He Worked As Hard At Forgetting As He Had Ever Worked To Learn.

I Think Of Nashville As A Very Natural Place. We're Easy Going, We Are Ourselves. There Isn't A Lot Of Preening Or Trying To Impress. So It's An Easy Place To Just Be And That Is A Good State From Which To Write.

It's Easier To Love A Woman When You Can't Understand A Word She's Saying.

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Maybe That Was The Definition Of Life Everlasting: The Belief That The Next Generation Would Carry Your Work Forward.

I Know That There Are People Out There Who Believe We Should Get Rid Of All Guns.

I Craft Everything In The Beginning. I Know Where The Characters Are Going Before I Start Writing The Book.

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The Tricky Thing About Being A Writer, Or About Being Any Kind Of Artist, Is That In Addition To Making Art You Also Have To Make A Living.

Write Because You Love The Art And The Discipline, Not Because You're Looking To Sell Something.

There Was Such An Incredible Logic To Kissing, Such A Metal-to-magnet Pull Between Two People That It Was A Wonder That They Found The Strength To Prevent Themselves From Succumbing Every Second. Rightfully, The World Should Be A Whirlpool Of Kissing Into Which We Sank And Never Found The Strength To Rise Up Again.

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I Could Teach. I Could Wait Tables. I Could Cook In A Restaurant. Food And Teaching Were The Two Skills I Had.

There Are, Of Course, People Who Didn't Create The Trouble They're In, But Lots Of Them Do.

Sometimes If There's A Book You Really Want To Read, You Have To Write It Yourself.

Everyone Knows Everything Eventually.

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Time Is The Most Extraordinary Gift For Friendship. You'll Get To Eat Your Meals Together And Study Together; In Some Cases You'll Even Sleep In The Same Room. You'll Have Time To Waste On Each Other. You'll Find Out Every Single Thing You Have In Common And Still Have Time To Catalogue All Of Your Differences. Don't Underestimate The Vital Necessity Of Friendship In Your Life Because It Is The Thing That Will Sustain You Later, When There Will Be Considerably Less Time.

If I Was A Waitress, I Was Too Tired At The End Of The Day When I Came Home To Try To Write.

I Will Write My Way Into Another Life.

Society Was Nothing But A Long, Dull Dinner Party Conversation In Which One Was Forced To Speak To One's Partner On Both The Left And The Right.

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.

I Don't Want To Stand With Somebody's Praise. Whereas Now When People Come Up To Me, They Say, "i Love The Bookstore" And "kids! Come Here, Come Here! This Is The Woman Who Owns The Bookstore." That's Incredible. I Can Say To That, "thank You For Shopping Local. Thank You For Coming In. What Are You Reading? Let's Talk About Books." It's About Something I'm Doing As Opposed To Somehow Something I Am. I Feel Comfortable And Positive In That Role. Because It's About Reading. It's About Books. It's About Learning. It's About Business And Tax Base.

Keeping People Safe Is A Story We Tell Ourselves.

I Think That People All Grow Up And Have Their Same Personalities, But You Can Say, "oh, I Can See The Roots Of This Personality, Which I Didn't Like, But Then You Grew Up, And I Can Still See You As That Person, But I Do Really Like You Now." Which Is Sort Of How I Feel About Children - I Mean, About Children Who I Knew When I Was A Child And Grew Up With, And They're Still My Friends, And Children That I Know As Children Who I See Growing Up, And Every Year I Like Them More.

Even Though I Didn't Know I Was Applying For The Job, I Have Somehow Become The Spokesperson For Independent Book Stores.

Home, Bed, Sleep, Mother--who Knew More Beautiful Words Than These?

Love Is A Rebellious Bird That No One Can Tame

Reading Fiction Not Only Develops Our Imagination And Creativity, It Gives Us The Skills To Be Alone. It Gives Us The Ability To Feel Empathy For People We've Never Met, Living Lives We Couldn't Possibly Experience For Ourselves, Because The Book Puts Us Inside The Character's Skin.

Nonfiction Is Easy And Fiction Is Hard.

I Wanted To Eat Her Pain, Take It Into Me And Make It My Own.

She Sang As If She Was Saving The Life Of Every Person In The Room.

Time Has A Funny Way Of Collapsing When You Go Back To A Place You Once Loved. You Find Yourself Thinking, I Was Kissed In That Building, I Climbed Up That Tree.

Finding Yourself

That Is One Thing I've Learned, That It Is Possible To Really Understand Things At Certain Points, And Not Be Able To Retain Them, To Be In Utter Confusion Just A Short While Later. I Used To Think That Once You Really Knew A Thing, Its Truth Would Shine On Forever. Now It's Pretty Obvious To Me That More Often Than Not The Batteries Fade, And Sometimes What You Knew Even Goes Out With A Bang When You Try To Call On It, Just Like A Lightbulb Cracking Off When You Throw The Switch.

I Certainly Have Written A Lot About Police In My Life, And It's Not Only Something That I Know About, But Always Something That Interests Me.

You Are The Same Person In Every Aspect Of Your Life, And You Have To Be A Responsible Person In Every Aspect Of Your Life.

Responsible Person

Part Of It Is Living In Tennessee. I'm So Out Of The Loop. And As A Person, I'm Out Of The Loop. I'm Oblivious By Nature.

You Can't Say, "i'm Too Busy Writing To Be Political." You Are One Person.

Carmen Prayed Hard. She Prayed While Standing Near The Priest In Hopes It Would Give Her Request Extra Credibility. What She Prayed For Was Nothing. She Prayed That God Would Look On Them And See The Beauty Of Their Existence And Leave Them Alone.

Because Of Her Singing They All Went Away Feeling Moved, Feeling Comforted, Feeling, Perhaps, The Slightest Tremors Of Faith.

If A Person Has Never Given Writing A Try, They Assume That A Brilliant Idea Is Hard To Come By. But Really, Even If It Takes Some Digging, Ideas Are Out There. Just Open Your Eyes And Look At The World. Writing The Ideas Down, It Turns Out, Is The Real Trick.

I Can Write For Any Magazine Now, In Any Voice. I Can Do It In Two Hours, I Could Do It In My Sleep, It's Like Writing A Grocery List.

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.

You See An Absolutely Brilliant Film Later, As An Adult, And You Walk Out Thinking About What To Have For Dinner. Whereas Something Like Jaws Winds Up Having A Huge Effect On Me. If Only My Parents Had Been Taking Me To Kurosawa Films When I Was Eight, But No.

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I Know Where I'm Going. And If I Don't Know Where I'm Going, I Don't Tend To Get Anywhere.

From My Table Inside I Watch The Glamorous Women Outside Who Are Lunching On Spa Cobb Salads Without Blue Cheese Or Dressing. The Man With The Bread Basket Wanders From Table To Table, Lonesome As A Cloud. When He Comes To Me His Basket Is Full And Perfectly Arranged. He Gives Me A Smile Of Sincere Pleasure When I Tell Him I Will Take Both The Sourdough Roll And The Cheese Stick.

Happiness Compresses Time, Makes It Dense And Bright, Pocketsized.

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