50 Anthony Doerr Quotes for You to Enjoy

Anthony Doerr

American Writer

Always Book Life Me Time You

Related authors: Dale Carnegie Denis Waitley Dr. Seuss H. L. Mencken Napoleon Hill Ray Bradbury W. E. B. Du Bois William Arthur Ward

All around us right now, tucked into the valleys and along the coasts, bookshops glow in the winter light. Think of them like singular, magical, and multi-dimensional recipe boxes. They wait for us to pluck out a card, to stand over the stove, to start cooking. Anthony Doerr

Winter Cooking Light Wait Stove Think Recipe Valleys Out Pluck All-Around Magical Over Along Like Around Boxes Glow Singular Tucked Them Us Stand Multi-Dimensional Now Card Right Start

Sometimes, if you wander long enough out-of-doors, you look up and find yourself in a suddenly devastating place: on a glittering slab of granite, say, hanging a thousand feet above a mountain lake. Anthony Doerr

You need to be imagining all the time, imagining yourself outside the walls of your own skull. Anthony Doerr

Time You Yourself Walls Own Outside Your Skull Need Imagining

I think some people think that writers read and read and read, get the information, and then write. That's not how it works. Often, you write yourself into a dark place where you don't know what you need to know, so you go get the information. Anthony Doerr

We buy a copy of 'Gravity's Rainbow,' say, and we carry our copy home. We open it; we fall into it. And it is here that the word 'copy' fails. Because what I experience when I read 'Gravity's Rainbow,' or 'Beloved,' or 'The Moviegoer,' is not at all a 'copy' of what you experience when you read the same novel. Anthony Doerr

Sometimes, when the neighborhood is silent and the sky is aswarm with the stars and the mind is swirling like a flushed toilet, a person gets to doubting himself. In the hardest times, the stand-at-the-kitchen-sink-and-stare-into-the blackness times, I put on Bob Dylan's 'Tomorrow Is a Long Time.' Anthony Doerr

My mom was a high school science teacher for decades. She just never made it feel like we had to choose between the arts and the sciences. We had bookshelves full of novels, and she also had Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold and Carl Sagan. Anthony Doerr

I never played inside as a kid - even in the rain I'd go out. Anthony Doerr

Rain Kid Out Inside Never Go Even Played

When people ask for book recommendations, I say this: Do some math. If you read one book every week for the rest of your life, and if you're lucky enough to live for 50 more years, you're only going to get to 2,600 books. Anthony Doerr

Life You Book People Rest Live Every Enough Books Say One Book Recommendations Some More Only Week Read Math Years Get Going Ask Your Lucky

We only get 60 years, if we're really lucky, as adults on earth, and why not try to wake up every day and learn something and talk to people? Anthony Doerr

But then of course you reach a point where you have to say, I've got to figure out how this book's going to end. Otherwise, you're going to write yourself into so many dead-ends. Anthony Doerr

You Yourself Book Otherwise Say Out Point Write Reach Course Got How End Going Where Then Figure Many

I found my first novel difficult. I don't want to make it sound like it's any more difficult than driving a cab or going to any other job, but there are so many opportunities for self-doubt, that you just kind of need to soldier on. Anthony Doerr

You Opportunities Job First Difficult Other Soldier Kind More Cab Driving Like Self-Doubt Make Sound Than Any Going So Many Opportunities Just Want Just Kind Many Novel Found Need

I guess you could say I've been writing all my life. Anthony Doerr

Life You Writing My Life Guess Say All My Life Could Been

I always told my dad I'd play professional football. Anthony Doerr

Football Always Professional Dad Professional Football Play

It wasn't until I was 26 or 25 when I started sending work out to magazines. Anthony Doerr

Work Out Magazines Until Sending Work Out Started

I feel like it has gone very fast for me, but I feel like it wasn't instantaneous, at all. I was getting a lot of rejections. I just got very lucky and it happened quickly for me. I don't feel like I'm a prodigy or something. Anthony Doerr

Me Gone Something Instantaneous Feel Like Got Lot Very Quickly Getting Just Happened Prodigy Lucky Fast Rejections

Fridays after school, especially when the weather was lousy, Mom would take me to the library. She'd let me check out whatever I wanted, and I checked out a lot. Anthony Doerr

Mom Me Library School Weather Whatever Out Would Take Check Checked She Lot Lousy Wanted After After-School

I read Stephen Crane's 'The Open Boat' when I was 11. Anthony Doerr

Open Read Boat

We Americans are churning through fresh water at an alarming and unsustainable rate. Anthony Doerr

Water Churning Rate Through Unsustainable Fresh American Alarming

Twain's 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' made me long to wake in an era when my Casio wristwatch would strike folks as sorcery, and Martin Amis's 'Time's Arrow' wrecked my assumption that all narratives had to proceed from Then to More-Recently-Than-Then. Anthony Doerr

Time Me Made King Long Assumption Strike Would Folks Wrecked Martin Had Sorcery Court Yankee Narratives Era Arrow Wake Arthur Proceed Then Twain Connecticut

'Never do the dishes without music,' my brother Mark once advised me - the same brother who once ate a spoonful of refrigerated dog food to escape his turn at the kitchen sink. And really, it may be the most sensible advice I've been given. Anthony Doerr

Music Food Me Dog Advice Mark Once Ate Brother Given Kitchen Kitchen Sink Never Most Spoonful Advised Without Dog Food Been His Sink Escape Same May Dishes Sensible Turn Really Who

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