Ann Patchett Quotes

Well, I've cleaned bathrooms in a warehouse. That was pretty terrible. But I can't complain because I'm sure other people have done worse.

When I was 16, I spent a year pushing trollies around a car park, and that wasn't fun. I didn't love working in a supermarket; it wasn't for me. It is for some people, and that's totally cool.

I worked at Little Caesar's for about two days, bro. I was out. That's the only job I've ever had.

I've worked everywhere. I worked in a warehouse packing surf supplies, a restaurant washing dishes, in retail, and I was a 'sandwich artist' at Subway.

I have been working since I was 20, and I'm 38. I actually once averaged out what I had made over my professional life. I think I could have made that much as a waiter or an insurance salesman. You know, I spent so many years in my 20's making $10,000 a year.

Writing became an obsessive compulsive habit but I had almost no money so I thought about being an urban firefighter and having lots of free time in which to write or becoming an English teacher and thinking about books and writers on a daily basis. That swayed me.

I had a job since I was old enough to work - since I was, like, 14.

Not every job is a good job.

I chose to have a career, and I enjoyed it while I had it.

I've worked at a deli, I've worked construction, I've worked a few different jobs.

When you're young, working in a warehouse or selling hot dogs, you look at work - at acting - as something precious. It gets you out of the stink.

I am not one of these guys who works job after job after job.

I worked in 40 restaurants over a five-year period.

I don't want to have to be a teacher so I can be a comedian.

After college, I spent a decade working the kinds of jobs that I write about - bartender, shoe salesman, kitchen man - while voraciously reading novels.

I had a lot of different jobs.

I had a Saturday job in Barratts shoe shop at the age of 15.

I've been very lucky in my employment over the years. You would think that the worst job I've ever had was as janitor, but it really wasn't, because I was a janitor at my dad's office building when I was younger.

I did all kind of jobs to sustain myself. I worked at a grocery store, in the public health department, and what was then Thomas Cook and Sons. The last job was particularly interesting, but I got fired from it.

I was like, 'I don't get out of bed for less than $21 an hour!'... I temped at Chanel and the New York Stock Exchange, and then I'd come home and write.

It slightly annoys me when people assume that I've never worked a day in my life. I've held many jobs, I've worked since I was 15.

I told my mom for years that I wanted to be a manicurist, and she'd always be like, 'But what if you went to college and you got a degree?' She'd try to explain how I could actually do a thing that would make me a ton of money, or that I didn't have to just pick the business that was closest to our house.

I'm not of the mind where, 'It doesn't matter what you care about; you've got to have a safe reliable job and do the 9 to 5.' I obviously don't subscribe to that. There's nothing wrong with that, though, if that's what you want to do.

I was working at Papa John's full-time. I had just quit my part-time job at UPS. I was there for two years.

In the nicest possible way, my first job was at Sainsbury's - my mum worked there, and I was a bag packer.