"It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice."
— Anne Tyler

"One sad thing about this world is that the acts that take the most out of you are usually the ones that people will never know about.

(from 'Celestial Navigation')"
— Anne Tyler

"I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get"
— Anne Tyler

"I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them."
— Anne Tyler (The Accidental Tourist)

"People always call it luck when you’ve acted more sensibly than they have. "
— Anne Tyler

"I write because I want more than one life; I insist on a wider selection. It’s greed, plain and simple. When my characters join the circus, I’m joining the circus. Although I’m happily married, I spent a great deal of time mentally living with incompatible husbands."
— Anne Tyler

"They were like people who run to meet, holding out their arms, but their aim is wrong; they pass each other and keep running."
— Anne Tyler

"He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller."
— Anne Tyler (The Amateur Marriage: A Novel)

"It's true that writing is a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them.
"
— Anne Tyler

"She saw herself riding in the passenger seat, Sam behind the wheel. Like two of those little peg people in a toy car. Husband peg, wife peg, side by side. Facing the road and not looking at each other; for why would they need to, really, having gone beyond the visible surface long ago. No hope of admiring gazes anymore, no chance of unremitting adoration. Nothing left to show but their plain, true, homely, interior selves, which were actually much richer anyhow."
— Anne Tyler (Ladder of Years)

"Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul - chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth! ~Anne Tyler, The Accidental Tourist
"
— Anne Tyler

"seven.
seven was when ethan had learned to ride a bicycle.
macon was visited by one of those memories that dent the skin, that strain the muscles. he felt the seat of ethan's bike pressing into his hand--the curled-under edge at the rear that you hold onto when you're trying to keep a bicycle upright. he felt the sidewalk slapping against his soles as he ran. he felt himself let go, slow to a walk, stop with his hands on his hips to call out, "you've got her now! you've got her!" and ethan rode away from him, strong and proud and straight-backed, his hair picking up the light till he passed beneath and oak tree. "
— Anne Tyler (The Accidental Tourist)