James Sullivan > James's Quotes

“We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything - what a waste!”
― Andre Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“[...]the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question.”
― Julian Barnes, The Only Story

“Time is linear. When we die. I think we die. But until we do...I want that time to be with you.”
― Abi Morgan

“So, if you are too tired to speak, sit next to me for I, too, am fluent in silence.”
― R. Arnold

“This is a tale of woe. This is a tale of sorrow. A love denied, a love restored, to live beyond tomorrow. Lest we think silence is the place to hide a heavy heart, remember, to love and be loved is life itself without which we are nought.”
― Abi Morgan

“Why do cats sleep so much? Perhaps they've been trusted with some major cosmic task, an essential law of physics - such as: if there are less than 5 million cats sleeping at any one time the world will stop spinning. So that when you look at them and think, "what a lazy, good-for-nothing animal," they are, in fact, working very, very hard.”
― Kate Atkinson

“And the barman asked me if I was alright? Simple little question. And i said I was. And he said he'd make me a sandwich. And I said okay. And I nearly started crying--because you know, here was someone just...And I watched him. He took two big slices off a fresh loaf and buttered them carefully, spreading it all around. I'll never forget it. And then he sliced some cheese and cooked ham and an onion out of a jar, and put it all on a plate and sliced it down the middle. And, just someone doing this for me. And putting it down in front of me. 'Get that down you, now,' he said. And then he folded up his newspaper and put on his jacket, and went off on his break. And there was another barman then. And I took this sandwich up and I could hardly swallow it, because of the lump in my throat. But I ate i tall down because someone I didn't know had done this for me. Such a small thing. But a huge thing. In my condition.”
― Conor McPherson, The Weir

“Those bitter sorrows of childhood!-- when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.”
― George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

“Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.”
― Margaret Atwood

“Always more, always hungrily scratching for more. But there were times, quiet moments, when our mother was sleeping, when she hadn’t slept in two days, and any noise, any stair creak, any shut door, any stifled laugh, any voice at all, might wake her, those still, crystal mornings, when we wanted to protect her, this confused goose of a woman, this stumbler, this gusher, with her backaches and headaches and her tired, tired ways, this uprooted Brooklyn creature, this tough talker, always with tears when she told us she loved us, her mixed-up love, her needy love, her warmth, those mornings when sunlight found the cracks in our blinds and laid itself down in crisp strips on our carpet, those quiet mornings when we’d fix ourselves oatmeal and sprawl onto our stomachs with crayons and paper, with glass marbles that we were careful not to rattle, when our mother was sleeping, when the air did not smell like sweat or breath or mold, when the air was still and light, those mornings when silence was our secret game and our gift and our sole accomplishment—we wanted less: less weight, less work, less noise, less father, less muscles and skin and hair. We wanted nothing, just this, just this.”
― Justin Torres, We the Animals

“This is your heritage,' he said, as if from this dance we could know about his own childhood, about the flavor and grit of tenement buildings in Spanish Harlem, and projects in Red Hook, and dance halls, and city parks, and about his own Paps, how he beat him, how he taught him to dance, as if we could hear Spanish in his movements, as if Puerto Rico was a man in a bathrobe, grabbing another beer from the fridge and raising it to drink, his head back, still dancing, still steeping and snapping perfectly in time.”
― Justin Torres, We the Animals

“Ah earth you old extinguisher.”
― Samuel Beckett, Happy Days

“WINNIE: Sometimes I am wrong. (Smile.) But not often. (Smile off.) Sometimes all is over, for the day, all done, all said, all ready for the night, and the day not over, far from over, the night not ready, far, far from ready. (Smile.) But not often. (Smile off.)”
― Samuel Beckett, Happy Days

“I've always had a theory that some of us are born with nerve endings longer than our bodies”
― Joy Harjo, In Mad Love and War

“If you do not love me I shall not be loved. If I do not love you I shall not love.”
― Samuel Beckett

“did you think i was a city
big enough for a weekend getaway
i am the town surrounding it
the one you've never heard of
but always pass through
there are no neon lights here
no skyscapers or statues
but there is thunder
for i make bridges tremble
i am not street meat i am homemade jam
thick enough to cut the sweetest
thing you lips will touch
i am not police sirens
i am the crackle of a fireplace
i'd burn you and you still
couldn't take your eyes off of me
cause i'd look so beautiful doing it
you'd blush
i am not a hotel room i am home
i am not the whiskey you want
i am the water you need
don't come here with expectations
and try to make a vacation out of me”
― Rupi Kaur, Milk and honey

“If I had a camera," I said, "I'd take a picture of you every day. That way I'd remember how you looked every single day of your life."

"I look exactly the same."

"No, you don't. You're changing all the time. Every day a tiny bit. If I could, I'd keep a record of it all."

"If you're so smart, how did I change today?"

"You got a fraction of a millimeter taller, for one thing. Your hair grew a fraction of a millimeter longer. And your breasts grew a fraction of a—"

"They did not!"

"Yes, they did."

"Did NOT."

"Did too."

"What else, you big pig?"

"You got a little happier and also a little sadder."

"Meaning they cancel out each other, leaving me exactly the same."

"Not at all. The fact that you got a little happier today doesn't change the fact that you also become a little sadder. Every day you become a little more of both, which means that right now, at this exact moment, you're the happiest and the saddest you've ever been in your whole life."

"How do you know?"

"Think about it. Have you ever been happier or sadder than right now, lying here in this grass?"

"I guess not. No."

"And have you ever been sadder?"

"No."

"It isn't like that for everyone, you know. Some people[...]"

"What about you? Are you the happiest and saddest right now that you've ever
been?"

"Of course I am."

"Why?"

"Because nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“Because I say so little you think I don't feel. I care a lot.”
― E.M. Forster, Maurice

“A waitress, bringing Finkler more hot water, interrupted Treslove's answer. Finkler always asked for more hot water no matter how much hot water had already been brought. It was his way of asserting power, Treslove thought. No doubt Nietzsche, too, ordered more hot water than he needed.”
― Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

“How do you go on knowing that you will never again - not ever, ever - see the person you have loved? How do you survive a single hour, a single minute, a single second of that knowledge? How do you hold yourself together?”
― Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

“At any age there is future one doesn't have. Never enough life when you are happy, that was the thing. Never so much bliss that you can't take a little more.”
― Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

“Was it better then - measuring the loss - not to know happiness at all? Better to go through life waiting for what never came, because that way you had less to mourn?”
― Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

“Faith wasn’t a mystery to him; the mystery to him was holding on to faith. He”
― Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

“History’s lesson is that bullies ultimately defeat themselves.”
― Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

“Don’t I look after you when you’re ill?’ ‘You do. You’re marvellous to me when I’m ill. It’s when I’m well that you’re no use.”
― Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

“By what twisted sophistication of argument do you harry people with violence off your land and then think yourself entitled to make high-minded stipulations as to where they may go now you are rid of them and how they may provide for their future welfare? I am an Englishman who loves England, but do you suppose that it too is not a racist country? Do you know of any country whose recent history is not blackened by prejudice and hate against somebody? So what empowers racists in their own right to sniff out racism in others? Only from a world from which Jews believe they have nothing to fear will they consent to learn lessons in humanity. Until then, the Jewish state’s offer of safety to Jews the world over yes, Jews first – while it might not be equitable cannot sanely be constructed as racist. I can understand why a Palestinian might say it feels racist to him, though he too inherits a history of disdain for people of other persuasions to himself, but not you, madam, since you present yourself as a bleeding-heart, conscience-pricked representative of the very Gentile world from which Jews, through no fault of their own, have been fleeing for centuries...”
― Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

“He let himself be storm-tossed, riding her billowing sea. When she held him like this he could see nothing, but the colour of his blindness was the colour of waves breaking”
― Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

“Aren't all dreads half desires?”
― Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

“T. S. Eliot told Auden tht the reason he played patience night after night was that it was the nearest thing to being dead.”
― Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question