Quotes by Donna Tartt

“Wade straight through life, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and heart open.”

“But while I have never considered myself a very good person, neither can I bring myself to believe that I am spectacularly bad one. Perhaps it's simply impossible to think of oneself in such a way.”

“Well -- think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No no -- hang on -- this is a question worth struggling with....”

“For humanstrapped in biologythere was no mercy: we lived a while, we fussed around for a bit and died, we rotted in the ground like garbage.”

“I wanted her to know just how much I loved her while also letting her know that she bore not one particle of blame for not loving me back.But I wouldnt say that. It was rosepetals I wanted to throw...”

“I like the idea of living in a city - any city, especially a strange one - like the thought of traffic and crowds, of working in a bookstore, waiting tables in a coffee shop, who knew what kind of ...”

“Over and over I played her favorite Arvo Prt, as a way of being with her; and she had only to mention recently read novel for me to grab it up hungrily, to be inside her thoughts, a sort of telepathy”

“Occasionally a car swooshed by in the rain and its headlights would swing round momentarily and illuminate the room-the pool table, snowshoes on the wall and the rowing machine, the armchair in whi...”

“Because I don’t 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, here’s the truth: lif...”

“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 life—a wilted petal, a black spot on the apple—the painter is giving you a secret message. He’s telling you that living things don’t last—it’s all tempo...”

“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 doesn’t touch. For if disaster and oblivion...”

“But Robin: their dear little Robs. More than ten years later, his death remained an agony; there was no glossing any detail; its horror was not subject to repair or permutation by any of the narrat...”

“The shame that tormented me was all the more corrosive for having no very clear origin: I didn't know why I felt so tainted, and worthless, and wrong-only that I did, and whenever I looked up from ...”

“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 tho...”

“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 can’t find the can opener.” “Apparently.” “There’s goi...”

“A different and much deeper sort of beauty altogether. The thing and yet not the thing.”

“...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.”

“Great paintings—people flock to see them, they draw crowds, they’re reproduced endlessly on coffee mugs and mouse pads and anything-you-like. And, I count myself in the following, you can have a li...”

“How much did she remember? I wondered, afire with humiliation yet unable to tear my eyes from her. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could ask but still I wanted to know. Did she have nightmares too?...”