Jessie Burton > Quotes

“Every woman is the architect of her own fortune.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“In suffering we find our truest selves.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“Growing older does not seem to make you more certain, Nella thinks. It simply presents you with more reasons for doubt.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“Pity, unlike hate, can be boxed and put away.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“A lifetime isn't enough to know how a person will behave.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“Everything Man sees he takes for a toy.
Thus is he always, forever a boy.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“You are sunlight through a window, which I stand in, warmed. My darling.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“Like most artists, everything I produced was connected to who I was - and so I suffered according to how my work was received. The idea that anyone might be able to detach their personal value from their public output was revolutionary.”
― Jessie Burton, The Muse

“Marin believes love is better in the chase than caught.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“The surface of Amsterdam thrives on these mutual acts of surveillance, the neighborly smothering of a person's spirit.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“Do you have a body if there is no one there to touch it? I suppose you do, but sometimes it felt like I didn't. I was just a mind floating around the rooms.”
― Jessie Burton, The Muse

“Amsterdam: Where the pendulum swings from God to a guilder.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“The bars on our cage are of our own making.”
― Jessie Burton

“For what am I, she wonders, but a product of my own imagination?”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“Marin believes love is better in the chase than caught,’ she says. He raises his eyebrows. ‘That does not surprise me. It is not better. But it is easier. One’s imagination is always more generous. And yet, the chase always tires you out in the end.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“I was lonely and I was angry, and rage and loneliness can end up tasting the same.”
― Jessie Burton, Medusa

“My brother knows the danger of having nothing to do.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“Here she is a puppet, a vessel for others to pour their speech. And it is not a man she has married, but a world.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“It's the hardest thing in the world to explain yourself, to tell your story clearly.”
― Jessie Burton, Medusa

“You see, remembering's a blessing and a curse. You can't erase your bad memories, but a life without regrets is a life unlived. What you remember and how you remember: it makes you who you are. Maybe you have a choice about that, maybe you don't.”
― Jessie Burton, Medusa

“Why are we so trapped by the hours, the minutes of every day? Why can't we live the life that's always out of reach?”
― Jessie Burton, The Muse

“The Medusa. What did he mean, the Medusa? My name was Medusa, and I was a girl. Perseus had made me sound like a mythical beast. I didn't want to be a myth. I wanted to be me.”
― Jessie Burton, Medusa

“When you have truly come to know a person, Nella -- when you see beneath the sweeter gestures, the smiles -- when you see the rage and the pitiful fear which each of us hide -- then forgiveness is everything. We are all in desperate need of it.”
― Jessie Burton

“Growing older, does not seem to make you more certain. It simply presents you with more reasons for doubt.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“She was a woman who’d done nothing wrong except exist.” “Except exist,” I echoed in a whisper.”
― Jessie Burton, Medusa

“Sometimes, not even folding yourself into the smallest, littlest shape is enough. So you might as well stay the size you're supposed to be”
― Jessie Burton, Medusa

“You really are an artist, aren’t you? You think it’s all about you, and you never stop looking for pain.”
― Jessie Burton, The Muse

“You are a stone, thrown upon a lake. But the ripples you create will never make you still.”
― Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

“...Is there ever such a thing as a whole story, or an artist's triumph, a right way to look through the glass? It all depends on where the light falls.”
― Jessie Burton, The Muse

“When you're a girl, people think your beauty is their possession.”
― Jessie Burton, Medusa