294 Quotes by Ann Patchett

Everybody believes in chance.

Learn to write by writing

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.

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.

I should figure out why I'm so much more interested in doing something that I think is really hard. But, somehow, the thing that is hard for me feels more noble.

Everyone knows everything eventually.

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.

The thing you can count on in life is that Tennessee will always be scorching hot in August.

It was never the right time or it was always the right time, depending on how you looked at it.