Ann Patchett Quotes

Only two groups of people intimidate me absolutely: salespeople and the French.

I think Canadian humor is a little less broad than American humor.

Every country needs another country to make fun of.

Laistry....I can't even say that. What would you call them in English?" "Canadians.

My notion of a great novel is something like a five-hundred-page shaggy-dog story, with only the punch line omitted.

He used to talk to me about Russia all the time and had sworn up and down that I'd love it here. "To you, it'd be like a fairy tale," he'd told me. "Sorry, comrade. Borg and out-of-date music aren't part of any happy ending I've ever imagined." "Borscht, not borg. And I've seen your appetite. If you were hungry enough, you'd eat it." "So starvation's necessary for this fairy tale to work out?

When Asian people grow up fast they go to college at 13. White people grow up fast it's about fudge packing and triple D's at 13.

Hector Torrez, how can you communicate with Enzo Hernandez when he speaks Spanish and you speak Mexican?

Nature and society are so replete with startling contrasts that wit often consists in the mere statement and comparison of facts, as when Hume says that the ancient Muscovites wedded their wives with a whip instead of a ring.

I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English.

Americans think the only funny Brits are John Cleese, Benny Hill and whoever makes our toothpaste. They're not laughing with us, they are laughing at us.

I was raping Frank Herbert, but with love.

Thanksgiving Day - Let all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks, now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys, they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji.

It's good to be back in New York. I have lived here ten years. I'm originally from Indiana. I know what most of you are thinking: Indiana: Mafia. But the fact of the matter is where I grew up there was something very similar to the Mafia: 4-H.

I was in Las Vegas when the Nogueira brothers first touched down in America. There was a bus, this is a true story. There was a bus that pulled up to a red light, and Little Nog tried to feed it a carrot, while Big Nog was petting it. He thought it was a horse. This really happened. He tried to feed a bus a carrot, and now you're telling me this country has computers? I didn't know that.

Sometimes you want to fall on your knees and thank God in heaven for all the poor news reporting that goes on in the world.

I am very shy. If I am flying British Airways and the airhostess asks me two questions, and I don't understand her accent - I will go hungry for the entire flight.

I love meeting people who have absolutely no sense of irony. It's really fascinating to imagine what it would be like to go through life without understanding even the most basic of ironies.

I've got a black woolen hat and it's got Pervert written across the front of it. It's the name of the clothing label. And I was with my wife and my baby at the supermarket and I didn't think. I just put my hat on Clara's head, because it was cold. And the looks. I couldn't figure out why I was getting death looks. And then I realized my 10-month old baby's wearing a hat with the word Pervert written on it and these people were like, 'There's Satan! There's Satan out with his kid!' And then I made a point of her wearing it every time we went there.

Actually, there is no way of making vomiting courteous. You have to do the next best thing, which is to vomit in such a way that the story you tell about it later will be amusing.

One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious.

Gravity”: “It’s the story of how George Clooney would rather float away into space and die then spend one more minute with a woman his own age.

The grotesque prudishness and archness with which garlic is treated in [England] has led to the superstition that rubbing the bowl with it before putting the salad in gives sufficient flavor. It rather depends whether you are going to eat the bowl or the salad.

The French just said he was a damned nuisance. Or they would have had they the good fortune to speak English. Instead being French they were forced to say it in their own language.

There is, I think, humor here which does not translate well from English into sanity.