A Quote by Ann Patchett

I saw that my best work was my most personal work, which is odd, because my fiction is very far afield and has nothing to do with my life. — © Ann Patchett
I saw that my best work was my most personal work, which is odd, because my fiction is very far afield and has nothing to do with my life.
My house is filled with books, most of which I have read, some of which I intend to eventually get to. I'm always reading at least one work of fiction and one work of non-fiction simultaneously. Whatever mood I'm in, there's always a book nearby to suit it.
I remember going to a music company and while I was sitting there I saw Panchamda. He saw me and hid from me - because he had come there asking for work. That was the most painful moment of my life - that one of the greatest composers, a living legend, was looking for work.
The most important work I got a chance to be involved in, no matter what I do, is the personal computer... I even knew not to get married until later because I was so obsessed with it. That's my life's work.
I grew up watching my parents work in the fields. That's where I get my work ethic from, because I saw them work hard my whole life.
It is popular to believe that in order to see clearly one must believe nothing. This may work well enough if you are observing cells under a microscope. It will not work if you are writing fiction. For the fiction writer, to believe nothing is to see nothing.
So many times, we take things to heart and that eats us up, and we think it over and over again with work and our personal life. But most of the time, it is not personal. It may have nothing to do with you but, instead, what the other person is going through in their life.
I always feel when you work with an artist and whenever I work with a really good photographer, I try to give him or her their own artistic freedom because that's the way you get the best work or at least the most interesting work.
Most of the photographs I make are personal pictures and never end up in print. Even the magazines I shoot for on assignment publish very few of the actual selects. Sometimes these personal pictures will end up in a book of my work. Oftentimes, however, they are simply photographs which I hope resonate, yet rarely find a publication home. I do a lot of personal work in Rio de Janeiro, and this of a parkour artist making a jump on Ipanema Beach is such a moment.
You've always got to work with the best if you can, and of course, the best are the best because they're different. They expect certain standards, and they're usually very difficult people to work with.
Most of the earth's inhabitants work to get by. They work because they have to. They didn't pick this or that kind of job out of passion; the circumstances of their lives did the choosing for them. Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring - this is one of the harshest human miseries. And there's no sign that coming centuries will produce any changes for the better as far as this goes.
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Il bel far niente means 'the beauty of doing nothing'... [it] has always been a cherished Italian ideal. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement. You don't necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either.
There is a lot of acting that is on the table - precisely, good acting. The best movies of mine are the ones that really nobody saw. The Groomsmen, Playing By Heart and Seeing Other People are by far the work I'm the most proud of.
It's all so personal, isn't it? It's hard to talk about work without talking about things that are personal. Work is personal. I don't want to talk about my personal life, but it's on my mind, and it's in my work.
I was a teacher most of my life, which I loved. I had a very happy working life, and when I retired, I thought I must do something, and I've always read a lot of fiction - you learn so much from fiction. My sentimental education came mostly from fiction, I should say, so I thought I'd try.
Working is actually a pleasure. It's just very time-consuming. It's a way of life. I find that I can work when I travel and work when I run. There is nothing like, on a rainy day, to work.
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