81 Quotes by Ann Beattie

I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality.

Quite often my narrator or protagonist may be a man, but I'm not sure he's the more interesting character, or if the more complex character isn't the woman.

I think almost always that what gets me going with a story is the atmosphere, the visual imagery, and then I people it with characters, not the other way around.

I think that I'm serious, but I don't think that I'm inordinately bleak.

It's often been said that I'm an extremely depressing, cynical writer. I've never known what to make of that.

While I would agree that I write about serious subjects, and that they're not necessarily the most pleasant subjects or even the most pleasant people, as a writer I just think about the humorous aspects of these things - that's what keeps me going when I'm writing a story.

Also minimalism is a term that all of us who share so little in common and who are lumped together as minimalists are not terribly happy with.

Women are obviously much more discriminated against than men in many ways.

I've been in this business for a long time, and I no longer think that anything that I do by way of clarification is ever going to eradicate the mistakes.