He realized now he was only just beginning to see the full extent to which it was his destiny to follow, to walk blindly into fates he could never understand. In fate there was reward, in turning over one's heart to God there was a magnificence that lay beyond description. At the moment one is sure that all is lost, look at what is gained!

— Ann Patchett

He was in love, and never had he felt such kindness towards another person.

— Ann Patchett

He was so close to her then that they owned every molecule of air in the tiny room and the air grew heavy with their desire and worked to move them together.

— Ann Patchett

Hope is a horrible thing, you know. I don't know who decided to package hope as a virtue because it's not. It's a plague. Hope is like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and somebody just keeps pulling it and pulling it.

— Ann Patchett

Hope is a horrible thing, you know. It's a plague. It's like walking around with a fishhook in your mouth and someone just keep pulling it and pulling it."STATE OF WONDER

— Ann Patchett

If a novel was a map of a country, a story was the bright silver pin that marked the crossroads.

— Ann Patchett

If Kumar had his way they would leave for Fiji every year just before Thanksgiving and not return until the New Year rang in, and the decorations came down. They would swim with the fishes and lie on the beach eating papaya. On the years they were tired of Fiji they would go to Bali or Sydney or any sunny, sandy place whose name contained an equal number of consonants and vowels.

— Ann Patchett

If you want a person wants is his life, he tends to be quiet about wanting anything else.

— Ann Patchett

I missed my mother's father. Is that even possible? Maybe I had fallen asleep for a while. Maybe I was like her, just waking up and looking for him to be there. I wondered how it would have changed things for all of us if he had stayed home the day he was supposed to die in his car. How his decision to go out for something small, something like coffee or orange juice which everyone could have done without, had changed things for all of us.

— Ann Patchett

Is it possible that anxiety ends at the moment when we no longer have time for it?

— Ann Patchett