Carole Gene > Carole's Quotes

“well that's the wonderful thing about books, that's the thing that books can do that no other art form can do: when we read a great book we do internalize it, it becomes part of us; when we read a great book we put it down and we're different people.”
― Donna Tartt

“Her death the dividing mark: Before and After.”
― Donna Tartt

“I am gifted at blending myself into any given milieu—you've never seen such a typical California teenager as I was, nor such a dissolute and callous pre-med student—but somehow despite my efforts, I am never able to blend myself in entirely and remain in some respects quite distinct from my surroundings, in the same way that a green chameleon remains a distinct entity from the leaf upon which it sits, no matter how perfectly it has approximated the the subtleties of the particular shade.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“In my own humorless state I failed to see anything except what I construed as certain tragic similarities between Gatsby and myself.”
― Donna Tartt

“Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist.”
― Jane Smiley

“Fascination with horses predated every other single thing I knew. Before I was a mother, before I was a writer, before I knew the facts of life, before I was a schoolgirl, before I learned to read, I wanted a horse.”
― Jane Smiley, A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck

“You know what getting married is? It's agreeing to taking this person who right now is at the top of his form, full of hopes and ideas, feeling good, looking good, wildly interested in you because you're the same way, and sticking by him while he slowly disintegrates. And he does the same for you. You're his responsibility now and he's yours. If no one else will take care of him, you will. If everyone else rejects you, he won't. What do you think love is? Going to bed all the time?”
― Jane Smiley