316 quotes found
Writer · English · 1959
English writer (born 1959)
“the buddhists say there are 149 ways to god. i'm not looking for god, only for myself, and that is far more complicated.”
“Destiny is a worrying concept. I don't want to be fated, I want to choose.”
“The ancients believed in Fate because they recognized how hard it is for anyone to change anything. The pull of past and future is so strong that the present is crushed by it. We lie helpless in th...”
“I thought about the dog and was suddenly very sad; sad about her death, for my death, for all the inevitable dying that comes with change. There's no choice that doesn't mean a loss.”
“Passion is not such an emotion as a destiny.”
“You are a pool of clear water where the light plays”
“There's no such thing as effortless beauty--you should know that.There's no effort which is not beautiful--lifting a heavy stone or loving you.Loving you is like lifting a heavy stone. It would be ...”
“St. Paul said it is better to marry than to burn, but my mother taught me it is better to burn than to marry.”
“I can't be a priest because although my heart is as loud as hers I can pretend no answering riot. I have shouted to God and the Virgin, but they have not shouted back and I'm not interested in the ...”
“Atlas said, 'Must my future be so heavy?' Hera said, 'That is your present, Atlas. Your future hardens every day, but it is not fixed.' 'How can I escape my fate?' 'You must choose your destiny.”
“Are we all living like this? Two lives, the ideal outer life and the inner imaginative life where we keep our secrets?”
“She knew full well that writers were sex-crazed bohemians who broke the rules and didn't go out to work.”
“Creative work bridges time because the energy of art is not time-bound. If it were we should have no interest in the art of the past, except as history or documentary. But our interest in art is ou...”
“Very often history is a means of denying the past. Denying the past is to refuse to recognise its integrity. To fit it, force it, function it, to suck out the spirit until it looks the way you thin...”
“The human heart is my territory. I write about love because its the most important thing in the world. I write about sex because often it feels like the most important thing in the world.”
“There will be a future. We believe in our unreality too strongly to give it up.”
“Explore me,' you said and I collected my ropes, flasks and maps, expecting to be back home soon. I dropped into the mass of you and I cannot find the way out. Sometimes I think Im free, coughed up ...”
“What are the unreal things but the passion that once burned one like a fire? What are the incredible things but the things that one has faithfully believed? What are the improbable things but the t...”
“But if what can exist does exist, is memory invention or is invention memory?”
“Look up. This is the season of shooting stars. Light, two thousand years old, still dazzling. Let me see your face. Your face lit up by twenty centuries.”
