Ann Patchett Quotes

I've always been a rule-follower. Even when I was a kid, I tried to do everything by the book.

Uh, excuse me, sir, I, uh, don't known how to uh, to uh, tell you this, but you were three minutes late. The schedule is a little, uh, bit off." He grinned sheepishly. "That's ridiculous!" murmured the Ticktockman behind his mask. "Check your watch." And then he went into his office, going mrmee, mrmee, mrmee, mrmee.

I'm a good boy! I do what I'm told; I'm on time. I'm always where I'm supposed to be when I'm supposed to be there. I don't mess around with other people's time and schedule. And I eat my vegetables. And my meats. And my carbs. And my dairy.

If I have a weakness, it's that I try to live by the rules. I try to live by the rules, no matter what they are, and I was brought up that way as a kid. Play by the rules.

I watch children a great deal; their idea is that rules are always negotiable, whereas you absolutely cannot joke at the airport about your toothpaste, and you cannot rollerblade in Grand Central Station. I keep running up against these things.

I don't see success as the goal. Obedience is the goal.

I'm fairly obedient. I do what I'm told.

Mr. Romney is quick to uphold rules great and small. During primary debates, when his rivals spoke out of turn or exceeded their allotted time, he would sometimes lecture them. When supporters ask Mr. Romney to sign dollar bills or American flags, he refuses and often gives them a little lesson about why doing so is against the law.

My job is to persuade people to toe the line and play within the laws of the game.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

Those who know the least obey the best.

He who must serve me, must do as I command. He who cannot do this, or who comes full of new ideas, may go his way. If he does not, I shall send him.

He learned too much and too early that victory goes to the discreet, that one does not speak one's opinion, that ideally one does not even develop one's opinion.

It is necessary to distinguish between the virtue and the vice of obedience.

People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident.

Obedience brings success; exact obedience brings miracles.

The education business is a little murky because by 1900, it has been pretty well decided that a certain amount of education was required to make the system of repression work. You had to have people who showed up punctually. You had to have people who took their orders obediently and understand them fully.

I was buttoned up as a kid. I did what I was told and never broke the rules.

A rule is a rule.

The rules are there for a reason.

I don't like rules, because rules, you have to follow.

I play where I'm told to play.

Rules that are not stringently upheld are more likely to get broken.

I'm well aware of the rules, and I don't want to play to the edge of them.

Obviously, flagrant things have to be called. There are rules. You have got to play to the rules, no question.