linse > linse's Quotes

“And though the coldness I have always felt leaves me, the numbness doesn't and probably never will. this relationship will probably lead to nothing... this didn't change anything. I imagine her smelling clean, like tea...”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“A curtain of stars, miles of them, are scattered, glowing, across the sky and their multitude humbles me, which I have a hard time tolerating. She shrugs and nods after I say something about forms of anxiety. It's as if her mind is having a hard time communicating with her mouth, as if she is searching for a rational analysis of who I am, which is, of course, an impossibility: there... is... no... key.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“Glück malt man mit Punkten, Unglück mit Strichen", sagte sie. "Du musst, wenn du unser Glück beschreiben willst, ganz viele kleine Punkte machen wie Seurat. Und dass es Glück war, wird man erst aus der Distanz sehen.”
― Peter Stamm, Agnes

“And the nights, bigger than imagining: black and gusty and enormous, disordered and wild with stars.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“He sailed through the world guided only by the dim lights of impulse and habit, confident that his course would throw up no obstacles so large that they could not be plowed over with sheer force of momentum.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“I had said goodbye to her once before, but it took everything I had to say goodbye to her then, again, for the last time, like poor Orpheus turning for a last backward glance at the ghost of his only love and in the same heartbeat losing her forever: hinc illae lacrimae, hence those tears.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“And I know I said earlier that he was perfect but he wasn’t perfect, far from it; he could be silly and vain and remote and often cruel and still we loved him, in spite of, because.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Sometimes when I saw him at a distance – fists in pockets, whistling, bobbing along with his springy old walk – I would have a strong pang of affection mixed with regret. I forgave him, a hundred times over, and never on the basis of anything more than this: a look, a gesture, a certain tilt of his head.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Well if you wake up intending to murder someone at two o’clock, you hardly think what you’re going to feed the corpse for dinner."
“Aspargus is in season,” said Francis helpfully.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“What if you had never seen the sea before? What if the only thing you'd ever seen was a child's picture - blue crayon, choppy waves? Would you know the real sea if you only knew the picture? Would you be able to recognize the real thing even if you saw it? You don't know what Dionysus looks like. We're talking about God here. God is serious business.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Nihil sub sole novum, I thought as I walked back down the hall to my room. Any action, in the fullness of time, sinks to nothingness.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“A picture that will never leave me. I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“There are people, she once wrote, who think that we cannot rule ourselves because the few times we tried, we failed, as if all the others who rule themselves today got it right the first time. It is like telling a crawling baby who tries to walk, and then falls back on his buttocks, to stay there. As if the adults walking past him did not all crawl, once.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus

“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride

“If you're happy in a dream, does that count?”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to no one. She spent hours on the riverbank. She smoked cigarettes and had midnight swims...”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.”
― Hermann Hesse

“That is where my dearest and brightest dreams have ranged — to hear for the duration of a heartbeat the universe and the totality of life in its mysterious, innate harmony.”
― Hermann Hesse, Gertrude

“Often it is the most deserving people who cannot help loving those who destroy them.”
― Herman Hesse

“The sound
of One Lung
filling with water

drowned out by wave after wave
of a million buzzing insects

an invisible chorus
that only knows how to sing

the last letter
of the alphabet.”
― Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth