"It makes you wonder. All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how."
— Ann Patchett (Bel Canto)

"Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. . . . It's a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are a spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world's greatest soprano. Not everyone can be an artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see."
— Ann Patchett (Bel Canto)

"I was starting to wonder if I was ready to be a writer, not someone who won prizes, got published and was given the time and space to work, but someone who wrote as a course of life. Maybe writing wouldn't have any rewards. Maybe the salvation I would gain through work would only be emotional and intellectual. Wouldn't that be enough, to be a waitress who found an hour or two hidden in every day to write?"
— Ann Patchett (Truth and Beauty)