The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life
Ann Patchett
Top 10 Best Quotes
“The more we are willing to separate from distraction and step into the open arms of boredom, the more writing will get on the page.”
“Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft. If you want to write, practice writing.”
“Maybe everyone does have a novel in them, perhaps even a great one. I don't believe it, but for the purposes of this argument, let's say it's so. Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words.”
“It turns out that the distance from head to hand, from wafting butterfly to entomological specimen, is achieved through regular, disciplined practice. What begins as something like a dream will in fact stay a dream forever unless you have the tools and the discipline to bring it out.”
“The journey from the head to the hand is perilous and lined with bodies. It is the road on which nearly everyone who wants to write—and many of the people who do write—get lost.”
“It’s a wonderful thing to find a great teacher, but you also have to find him or her at a time in life when you’re able to listen to, trust, and implement the lessons you receive.”
“Why is it that we understand that playing the cello will require work but we relegate writing to the magic of inspiration?”
“We all have ideas, sometimes good ones, not to mention the gift of emotional turmoil that every childhood provides.”
“I think that what influences us in literature comes less from what we love and more from what we happen to pick up in moments when we are especially open.”
“What I like about the job of being a novelist, and at the same time what I find so exhausting about it, is that it's the closest thing to being God you're ever going to get. All the decisions are yours. You decide when the sun comes up. You decide who gets to fall in love and who gets hit by a car. You have to make all the trees and all the leaves and then sew the leaves onto the trees. You make the entire world.”
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Book Keywords:
creative-process, trade-in, disappointment, writing, imagination, work, writing-process, writers, heartbreak
