161 Quotes by Annie Proulx

... there are four women in every man’s heart. The Maid in the Meadow, the Demon Lover, the Stouthearted Woman, the Tall and Quiet Woman.

I would rather be dead than not read

Develop craftsmanship through years of wide reading.

Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.

What we fear we often rage against.

And I think that's important, to know how the water's gone over the dam before you start to describe it. It helps to have been over the dam yourself.

Walking on the land or digging in the fine soil I am intensely aware that time quivers slightly, changes occurring in imperceptible and minute ways, accumulating so subtly that they seem not to exist. Yet the tiny shifts in everything--cell replication, the rain of dust motes, lengthening hair, wind-pushed rocks--press inexorably on and on.

We're all strange inside. We learn how to disguise our differences as we grow up.

What I find to be very bad advice is the snappy little sentence, 'Write what you know.' It is the most tiresome and stupid advice that could possibly be given. If we write simply about what we know we never grow. We don't develop any facility for languages, or an interest in others, or a desire to travel and explore and face experience head-on. We just coil tighter and tighter into our boring little selves. What one should write about is what interests one.