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Andrea Barrett Quotes Quotes
All my life, books have felt alive; some more so than people, or rather, some people. Alive - this has to do with me, I know, and not the books - in a way that some people aren't. Alive as teachers, alive as minds, alive as imaginative triggers.
~ Andrea Barrett
Alive
All My Life
Books
Felt
Imaginative
Know
Life
Me
Minds
More
My Life
People
Rather
Some
Some People
Teachers
Than
Triggers
Way
design
copy
By junior high, I was a horrible student. But during my sophomore year of high school, I did have a fabulous English teacher, and I would go to school just for her class and then skip out afterwards. That's actually when I started writing, although I didn't think of it then as something I might someday do.
~ Andrea Barrett
Actually
Afterwards
Although
Class
Did
English
English Teacher
Fabulous
Go
Her
High
High School
Horrible
Junior
Junior High
Just
Might
Out
School
Skip
Someday
Something
Sophomore
Sophomore Year
Started
Student
Teacher
Then
Think
Would
Writing
Year
design
copy
For a sculptor, a painter, a weaver, a potter, the dialogue between one's materials and what one makes from them is easy to see: discover a new material or a new way to use a familiar one, and new things can be made, sometimes leading to the discovery of more new material, leading to more creation.
~ Andrea Barrett
Between
Creation
Dialogue
Discover
Discovery
Easy
Familiar
Leading
Made
Makes
Material
Materials
More
New
New Material
New Things
New Way
Painter
Potter
Sculptor
See
Sometimes
Them
Things
Use
Way
design
copy
I am, as are most writers, just hugely obsessive, and so are many of my closest friends, who tend to be writers or scientists. It's a trait of human nature that I'm particularly in touch with. So I tend to project it onto my characters.
~ Andrea Barrett
Am
Characters
Closest
Closest Friends
Friends
Hugely
Human
Human Nature
I Am
Just
Many
Most
Nature
Obsessive
Onto
Particularly
Project
Scientists
Tend
Touch
Trait
Who
Writers
design
copy
I grew up on Cape Cod. We didn't live right on the water, but I could walk to it and did every day.
~ Andrea Barrett
Cape
Could
Day
Did
Every
Every Day
Grew
Live
Right
Up
Walk
Water
design
copy
I read a lot, very passionately, from the time I was very young, but it was a constant battle; my mother would more or less let me be, but with my father, I was always searching for a place where he wouldn't find me. Whenever he saw me reading, he would tell me to put the book down and go outside, act like a normal person.
~ Andrea Barrett
Act
Always
Battle
Book
Constant
Down
Father
Find
Go
He
Less
Like
Lot
Me
More
More Or Less
Mother
Normal
Normal Person
Outside
Passionately
Person
Place
Put
Read
Reading
Saw
Searching
Tell
Time
Very
Whenever
Where
Would
Young
design
copy
I think most fiction writers naturally start by writing short stories, but some of us don't. When I first started writing, I just started writing a novel. It's a hard way to learn to write. I don't recommend it to my students, but it just happens that way for some of us.
~ Andrea Barrett
Fiction
Fiction Writers
First
Happens
Hard
Hard Way
I Think
Just
Learn
Most
Naturally
Novel
Recommend
Short
Short Stories
Some
Start
Started
Stories
Students
Think
Us
Way
Write
Writers
Writing
design
copy
I think the landscape you grow up in probably does mark you in ways you don't even understand.
~ Andrea Barrett
Does
Even
Grow
Grow Up
I Think
Landscape
Mark
Think
Understand
Up
Ways
You
design
copy
I wanted to be a scientist. My undergraduate degree is in biology, and I really did think I might go off and be some kind of a lady Darwin someplace. It turned out that I'm really awful at science and that I have no gift for actually doing science myself. But I'm very interested in others who practice science and in the stories of science.
~ Andrea Barrett
Actually
Awful
Biology
Darwin
Degree
Did
Doing
Gift
Go
Interested
Kind
Lady
Might
Myself
Off
Others
Out
Practice
Really
Science
Scientist
Some
Someplace
Stories
Think
Turned
Undergraduate
Very
Wanted
Who
design
copy
I've always written about people who have very abstracted in a certain way. I write about scientists and artists and musicians. I write about people who live in their heads who are very obsessed about a certain set of details in the physical world.
~ Andrea Barrett
About
Abstract
Always
Artists
Certain
Certain Way
Details
Heads
I Write
Live
Musicians
Obsessed
People
Physical
Physical World
Scientists
Set
Very
Way
Who
World
Write
Written
design
copy
I've never been to a black-tie thing in my life. I didn't even go to my prom.
~ Andrea Barrett
Been
Even
Go
Life
My Life
Never
Prom
Thing
design
copy
In the story I eventually called 'Archangel' and published in 2008, Eudora MacEachern, working as an assistant to a surgeon at a hospital in Archangel, one night finds outside the gates an exhausted and frostbitten soldier crouched over the reins of a pony sleigh carrying the body of another soldier.
~ Andrea Barrett
Another
Assistant
Body
Carrying
Eventually
Exhausted
Finds
Gates
Hospital
Night
One-Night
Outside
Over
Pony
Published
Reins
Soldier
Story
Surgeon
Working
design
copy
Infectious disease exists at this intersection between real science, medicine, public health, social policy, and human conflict. There's a tendency of people to try and make a group out of those who have the disease. It makes people who don't have the disease feel safer.
~ Andrea Barrett
Between
Conflict
Disease
Exists
Feel
Group
Health
Human
Infectious
Intersection
Make
Makes
Medicine
Out
People
Policy
Public
Public Health
Real
Safer
Science
Social
Social Policy
Tendency
Those
Try
Who
design
copy
Margot Livesey, my dear friend, reads all the drafts of what I write, and I read hers. We have an intense working relationship. I've been really lucky to know her. She's a great reader and teacher as well as an astonishingly good writer.
~ Andrea Barrett
Been
Dear
Dear Friend
Drafts
Friend
Good
Good Writer
Great
Her
Hers
I Write
Intense
Know
Lucky
Read
Reader
Reads
Really
Relationship
She
Teacher
Well
Working
Write
Writer
design
copy
My mother was largely a housewife until she and my father were divorced. No one in the family read for pleasure - it was a very unintellectual household - but my mother did read to us when we were little, and that's how I started to read.
~ Andrea Barrett
Did
Divorced
Family
Father
Household
Housewife
How
Largely
Little
Mother
No-One
Pleasure
Read
She
Started
Until
Us
Very
Were
design
copy
The thing I'm particularly interested in is natural history. In its heyday, the mid- and late-nineteenth century, when people were going out and gathering the first huge caches of data and trying to understand what was living and growing everywhere, there was such a sense of freshness to that pursuit. It's very exciting.
~ Andrea Barrett
Century
Data
Everywhere
Exciting
First
Freshness
Gathering
Going
Growing
History
Huge
Interested
Living
Mid
Natural
Natural History
Out
Particularly
People
Pursuit
Sense
Thing
Trying
Understand
Very
Were
design
copy
There's actually nothing interesting about me except what I write.
~ Andrea Barrett
About
Actually
Except
I Write
Interesting
Me
Nothing
Write
design
copy
When I'm sniffing around new territory, I often choose, rather randomly, one general book and then follow its bibliography and notes to other, more specialized works and to the primary source material.
~ Andrea Barrett
Around
Book
Choose
Follow
General
Material
More
New
New Territory
Notes
Often
Other
Primary
Primary Source
Randomly
Rather
Source
Source Material
Specialized
Territory
Then
Works
design
copy
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AuthorName
Andrea Barrett
Profession
Novelist
BirthDate
16 November, 1954
Country
United States
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