62 quotes found
“Its a long story. Ill make it short as I can.”
“Maybe the one had to be lost for the others to be found?”
“Sometimes we want what we want even if we know its going to kill us.”
“. . . it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn't touch.”
“Maybe good luck was like bad luck in that it took a while to sink in.”
“...not to look back or feel sad about things, that home is wherever I am.”
“Because I dont care what anyone says or how often or winningly they say it: no one will ever, ever be able to persuade me that life is some awesome, rewarding treat. Because, heres the truth: life ...”
“How much did she remember? I wondered, afire with humiliation yet unable to tear my eyes from her. It wasnt the kind of thing you could ask but still I wanted to know. Did she have nightmares too? ...”
“Putting your time in at the office; dutifully spawning your two point five; smiling politely at your retirement party; then chewing on your bedsheet and choking on your canned peaches at the nursin...”
“Whenever you see flies or insects in a still lifea wilted petal, a black spot on the applethe painter is giving you a secret message. Hes telling you that living things dont lastits all temporary. ...”
“What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that cant be trusted? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health...”
“And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesnt touch. For if disaster and oblivion ...”
“During the next week, everyone noticed that my appetite had improved, even Toddy. Are you done with your hunger strike? he asked me curiously, one morning. Toddy, eat your breakfast. But I thought ...”
“But when she was annoyed with me, she had a cold way of saying Apparently in answer to almost anything I said, making me feel stupid. Um, I cant find the can opener. Apparently. Theres going to be ...”
“Whats worth living for? whats worth dying for? whats completely foolish to pursue?”
“What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and...”
“Why am I made the way I am? Why do I care about all the wrong things, and nothing at all for the right ones? Or, to tip it another way: how can I see so clearly that everything I love or care about...”
“I was deluded, and I knew it. Worse: my love for Pippa was muddied-up below the waterline with my mother, with my mother's death, with losing my mother and not being able to get her back. All that ...”
“A different and much deeper sort of beauty altogether. The thing and yet not the thing.”
“The little white bundletoddling dutifully down the hall to the front doorfroze. Then a high-pitched scream as he began to run as fast as he could (which was not very fast at all, any more) and Bori...”
“But does it make any sense at all to know that it ends badly for all of us, even the happiest of us, and that we all lose everything that matters in the end-and yet to know as well, despite all thi...”
“...as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn't touch.”
“Who knew it was in my power to make anyone so happy? Or that I could ever be so happy myself? My moods were a slingshot; after being locked-down and anesthetized for years my heart was zinging and ...”
“Do you have any idea why you might be feeling better?No, not really, I said curtly. Better wasnt even the word for how I felt. There wasnt a word for it. It was more that things too small to mentio...”
“I hated being around people, couldnt pay attention to what anyone was saying, couldnt talk to clients, couldnt tag my pieces, couldnt ride the subway, human activity seemed pointless, incomprehensi...”
“Great paintingspeople flock to see them, they draw crowds, theyre reproduced endlessly on coffee mugs and mouse pads and anything-you-like. And, I count myself in the following, you can have a life...”
