81 Quotes by Ann Beattie

Clichés so often befall vain people.

It's not about having things figured out, or about communicating with other people, trying to make them understand what you understand. It's about a chicken dinner at a drive-in. A soft pillow. Things that don't need explaining.

Nothing is so lovely as a quietly snoring dog and some evening Brahms, as you sit in a comfortably overstuffed chair with your feet on the footstool.

Are you happy?""I think I may be going to be happy."Remember, things do not force, forge or fashion. They fall into place

People who were dying: their minds always raced past whatever was being said, and still the pain went faster, leapfrogging ahead.

Then the auctioneer introduced himself [,,,,]. He started to speak into the microphone, a maddening, jammed-up sequence of words that crashed like bumper cars, after which everything sorted itself into some kind of sense again, and after the fact you could understand most of what he'd said.

I guess that I have been thinking about how graceful you were, and although it is none of my business, I wondered whether you might not be paying a price for being that way. . . . People want to have an easy fix on other people, and since you are Cindi Coeur, it's easy to assume that someone who satirizes our shortcomings has set herself above us.

I think I write about things that are mysterious to me.

You have to figure out who the right person is to tell the story. And often, people who are very self-aware will only sound as if they are pontificating if they tell the story.