Hunter > Hunter's Quotes

“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown I back, throat to the stars, "more like deer than human being." To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Forgive me, for all the things I did but mostly for the ones that I did not.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“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

“But how,” said Charles, who was close to tears, “how can you possibly justify cold-blooded murder?’
Henry lit a cigarette. “I prefer to think of it,” he had said, “as redistribution of matter.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“It is is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“There is nothing wrong with the love of Beauty. But Beauty - unless she is wed to something more meaningful - is always superficial.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Are you happy here?" I said at last.
He considered this for a moment. "Not particularly," he said. "But you're not very happy where you are, either.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“I've loved keeping your secret, Remus wanted to say, I'd keep a thousand more, for you.”
― MsKingBean89, All the Young Dudes

“Pete. A word.”
― MsKingBean89, All the Young Dudes

“As he unlocked his front door, he could hear the phone ringing. It took him a few moments to get in - the wooden frame had swollen with all the rainfall, and the door got gummed up sometimes - but when he got in, it was still ringing. Must be urgent , he thought, absent-mindedly.
He shouted, “Padfoot? You in?” as he crossed the the room, then lifted the receiver, “Hello?”
“Hello? Hello, Remus, is that you?”
“Mary? Hi! I just got back - where the hell is everybody?!”
There was a strange silence on the end of the phone, and a horrible static prickle ran down his spine. “Mary?!”
“You haven’t heard…”
“Jesus Christ, Mary, what?!”
“Remus… something awful has happened.”
She started explaining, and Remus fell to his knees as the whole world began to fall apart.”
― MsKingBean89, All the Young Dudes

“Tell me a secret? A nice one?”

Remus paused. He kissed Sirius’s hair.

“I’m mental about you, too.”
― MsKingBean89, All the Young Dudes

“[T]he problem was, some limits weren’t fences. Sometimes they were edges; with nothing on the other side.”
― MsKingBean89, All the Young Dudes