Ann Patchett Quotes

My biggest vice is playing solitaire on my iPad. It's bad. I mean, it's ridiculous.

The more you pursue distractions, the less effective any particular distraction is, and so I'd had to up various dosages, until, before I knew it, I was checking my e-mail every ten minutes, and my plugs of tobacco were getting ever larger, and my two drinks a night had worsened to four, and I'd achieved such deep mastery of computer solitaire that my goal was no longer to win a game but to win two or more games in a row--a kind of meta-solitaire whose fascination consisted not in playing the cards but in surfing the streaks of wins and losses.

I'll read anything. In fact, I'll read while I'm doing other things, which is not a good idea.

I'm obsessed with making lists.

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

Every day I tell myself that reading newspapers is a waste of time, but then... I cannot do without them. They are like a drug.

I often obsess so much about things that I can't get done, that I ruin other things.

I'm addicted to something at all times. Like, it's always music, but maybe sometimes it's a pair of pants or something else. That's just how my personality works.

I've always been very un-fun. I'm a habit person. I have a very weak version of an addictive personality.

I call myself an addicted organizer.

For many people it's Facebook, or sports on TV, whatever it is. I have my own demons that I battle. But whatever they are, you wish you could not do them. For most of us it's "I cannot get off Facebook." But imagine that your demon has you living on the street. I don't think those compulsions and obsessions are that different.

I play every day. It's like a habit for me now. I just, if I don't play, I kind of miss - something's off.

Addiction - When you can give up something any time, as long as it's next Tuesday.

It is easy to assume a habit; but when you try to cast it off, it will take skin and all.

An addict is an addict. If they're not acting out in one area, it tends to come out in another. I think there was a time when I considered myself a work addict, but that's no longer accurate.

Success is hastened or delayed by one's habits.

I can't live without it. I'm on HuskerPedia™ every day.

Do we always, always to the point of misery, do a thing?

A mind obsessed with sex is good for nothing else.

It's extraordinary these obsessions. You conquer one but then you move onto another.

But I still feel I waste a lot of time leaning on my elbow and thinking to myself, 'alright sucker, now what?'

I make myself a bowl of instant oatmeal, and then I don't do anything for an hour. Why do I need the instant oatmeal? I could get the regular oatmeal and feel productive.

The scholar's greatest weakness: calling procrastination research.

That which is always within our reach, is always the last thing we take; and the chances are, that what we can do every day, we never do at all.

One you've danced, you always dance.