The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning
Anne TylerRead
People imagine that missing a loved one works kind of like missing cigarettes,' he said. 'The first day is really hard but the next day is less hard and so forth, easier and easier the longer you go on. But instead it's like missing water. Every day, you notice the person's absence more.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Missing someone you love grows more intense over time rather than easier.
This quote highlights the profound nature of love and loss, suggesting that the absence of a loved one does not diminish over time, but rather deepens the sense of longing. Unlike the gradual loss of a physical craving, such as for cigarettes, the emotional pain of missing someone feels more like a struggle against thirst, where the absence becomes increasingly apparent and impactful as time passes.
Themes
LossAbsenceLoveLongingGrief
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about grief, one could use this quote to illustrate the deep emotional impact of losing someone.
More from Anne Tyler
All quotes →I don't know what takes more courage: surviving a lifelong endurance test because you once made a promise or breaking free, disrupting all your world.
Anne TylerRead
I just want to be told a story, and I want to believe I'm living that story, and I don't give a thought to influences or method or any other writerly concerns
Anne TylerRead
I do write long, long character notes - family background, history, details of appearance - much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage.
Anne TylerRead
It seems to me that since I've had children, I've grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.
Anne TylerRead
And she thought what a clean, simple life she would have led if it weren't for love.
Anne TylerRead
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My family moved to Saudi Arabia from Glasgow when I was 15. Being a 15-year-old girl anywhere is difficult - all those hormones and everything - but being a 15-year-old girl in Saudi Arabia... it was like someone had turned the light off in my head. I could not get a grasp on why women were treated like this.
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One of the things that makes a Negro unpleasant to white folk is the fact that he suffers from their injustice. He is thus a standing rebuke to them.
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When you say, 'I'm sorry,' you turn people into your allies, even your partners.
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True empathy is always free of any evaluative or diagnostic quality. This comes across to the recipient with some surprise. "If I am not being judged, perhaps I am not so evil or abnormal as I have thought".
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It PASSED! Marriage equality in NY!! Yes!! Progress!! Thank you everyone who worked so hard on this!! A historic night!
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For a man who finds life tolerable only by staying on the surface of himself, it is natural to be satisfied with offering no more than his surface to others. There are few demands to be met, and no commitment is required. Marriage, on the other hand, closes the door. Your existence is confined to a narrow space in which you are constantly forced to reveal yourself – and therefore, constantly obliged to look into yourself, to examine your own depths.
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