Ann Beattie Quotes

I write what I don't know. It's way more interesting.

Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know.

When I make a film, I never stop uncovering mysteries, making discoveries. When I'm writing, filming, editing, even doing promotional work, I discover new things about the film, about myself, and about others. That is what I'm subconsciously looking for when shooting a film: to glimpse the enigmas of life, even if I don't resolve them, but at least to uncover them. Cinema is curiosity in the most intense meaning of the word.

Reading makes me want to write my own books, and just trying to understand what I see in the world around me makes me want to figure things out.

I think I have sort of gravitated toward issues that I don't know the answers to, because that's what's more interesting for me to write.

Most writers are drawn to what is unknown, rather than what is clear in any tale.

I get so much inspiration from my travels, but I also started an exercise where I write down so many words every week. Then I begin crossing them off. We create a grid of words and also images, but words for me are more ample because you can interpret them your own way.

I'm not really sure if I have anything that inspires me.

I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality.

Writing reminds you of how much there is in your life that stands outside your explanations. In that way, it's almost a journey into faith and doubt at once.

Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.

I have so many themes I want to explore, so many questions I'd like to raise and develop, and hopefully, I'll get to do just that.

Curiosity is the essence of human existence. 'Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?'... I don't know. I don't have any answers to those questions. I don't know what's over there around the corner. But I want to find out.

Poetry is a release of something previously unknown into the visible. You write to invite that, to make of yourself a gathering of the unexpected and, with luck, of the unexpectable.

I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time.

Both the man of science and the man of action live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it.

I write novels because there is something I don't understand in reality.

When I was a teenager, reading for me was as normal, as unremarkable as eating or breathing. Reading gave flight to my imagination and strengthened my understanding of the world, the society I lived in, and myself. More importantly, reading was fun, a way to live more than one life as I immersed myself in each good book I read.

I don't think I've ever frightened myself before when writing, but there were areas where there was terror, as though I was looking into somewhere that I didn't know existed before, and it frightened me.

The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.

As long as there are things to wonder about, there are stories to be written about them. That makes me happy, because writing about things seems to be my thing.

I don't know why I write what I write.

Be bored and see where it takes you, because the imagination's dusty wilderness is worth crossing if you want to sculpt your soul.

I'm driven to go out and find new things to write about.

I always write about what interests me.