299 Quotes by Anne Tyler

"You know we can't depend on Denny in any permanent way," Amanda told Nora, for instance. "He might promise us the moon, but one day he'll up and leave us. I'm surprised he's lasted that long."

"The first thing I tell people is, I’m just an ordinary woman. I’m just like you, I say, I can see they don't believe me."

"My wife used to say that her idea of hell would be marrying Ghandi," Ben said ... "Think about it: Ghandi was always the good one. Everyone else looked so rude and loud and self-centered by comparison."

"There ought to be a while separate language, she thought, for words that are truer than other words - for perfect, absolute truth. It was the purest fact of her life: she did not understand him, and she never would."

"People imagine that missing a loved one works kind of like missing cigarettes. The first day is really hard but the next day is less hard and so forth, easier and easier the longer you go on. But instead it’s like missing water. Every day, you notice the person’s absence more."

"Why wasn't there an etiquette book for runaway wives?"

"Smells could bring a person back clearer than pictures even could."

"Ghosts... they are the completions of the deads intended gestures, there unfinished plans still hanging in the air - something like when you forgot one thing and so you pantomime the motion."

"You know why I like to talk to you, Delia? You never interrupt with your experiences. Not jiggling your foot till you get a chance to jump in with your life history."

"Epictetus say that everything has two handles, one by which it can be borne and one which it cannot. If your brother sins against you, he says, don't take hold of it by the wrong he did you but by the fact that he's your brother. That's how it can be borne."