Jenna > Jenna's Quotes

“I came," she said, "hoping you could talk me out of a fantasy."
Cherish it!" cried Hilarious, fiercely. "What else do any of you have? Hold it tightly by it's little tentacle, don't let the Freudians coax it away or the pharmacists poison it out of you. Whatever it is, hold it dear, for when you lose it you go over by that much to the others. You begin to cease to be.”
― Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49

“And Lo, for the Earth was empty of Form, and void. And Darkness was all over the Face of the Deep. And We said: 'Look at that fucker Dance.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“Shall I project a world?”
― Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49

“Oh, I will be cruel to you, Marya Morevna. It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. But you understand, don’t you? You are clever enough. I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I am your servant. When you starve I will feed you; when you are sick I will tend you. I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased. For you alone I will be weak.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“I do not tolerate a world emptied of you. I have tried. For a year I have called every black tree Marya Morevna; I have looked for your face in the patterns of the ice. In the dark, I have pored over the loss of you like pale gold.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Sorry—Quoth. It’s the language of storms. They’re great poets, some of them.”
― Scott Hawkins, The Library at Mount Char

“You look like a winter night", he had told her when he had given it to her. "I could sleep inside the cold of you.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“She may know a little, may think of herself, face and body, as ‘pretty’… but he could never tell her all the rest, how many other living things, birds, nights smelling of grass and rain, sunlit moments of simple peace, also gather in what she is to him.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

“How I adore you, Marya. How well I chose. Scold me; deny me. Tell me you want what you want and damn me forever. But don’t leave me.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“There are so many doors to open. I am impatient to begin."

--Charlie Gordan”
― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

“The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.”
― Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin

“The thing about love is that we come alive in bodies not our own.”
― Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin

“The absence of violence is not love.”
― A.S. King, Still Life with Tornado

“nothing about her pain is remotely original —and yet it still hurts”
― A.S. King, Still Life with Tornado

“Erwin gave no fucks.”
― Scott Hawkins, The Library at Mount Char

“Steve sighed, wishing for a cigarette. “The Buddha teaches respect for all life.” “Oh.” She considered this. “Are you a Buddhist?” “No. I’m an asshole. But I keep trying.”
― Scott Hawkins, The Library at Mount Char

“Aren’t you violating the building codes? Or the laws of physics?”
― Scott Hawkins, The Library at Mount Char

“Thwarted by technobabble.”
― Scott Hawkins, The Library at Mount Char

“Wow. Listen. Just kiss both kinds of face. Maybe you'll enjoy them equally. That's fine. Let love rule. It's the nineties. Get used to it.”
― John Allison, Giant Days, Vol. 2

“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.”
― Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

“I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And it that's sinful, then let me be damned for it!”
― Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

“Oh, you can't describe someone you're in love with!”
― Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

“I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic and a dyslexic?"

"I give."

"You get someone who stays up all night torturing himself mentally over the question of whether or not there's a dog.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“Mary had a little lamb, its fleece electrostatic / And everywhere Mary went, the lights became erratic.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“Why not? Why not? Why not not, then, if the best reasoning you can contrive is why not?”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“They're in love. Fuck the war.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

“How to stop time: kiss.
How to travel in time: read.
How to escape time: music.
How to feel time: write.
How to release time: breathe.”
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

“There is a story about a prisoner at Alcatraz who spent his nights in solitary confinement dropping a button on the floor then trying to find it again in the dark. Each night, in this manner, he passed the hours until dawn. I do not have a button. In all other respects, my nights are the same.”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation

“Strange about learning; the farther I go the more I see that I never knew even existed. A short while ago I foolishly thought I could learn everything - all the knowledge in the world. Now I hope only to be able to know of its existence, and to understand one grain of it. Is there time?”
― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon