Jenn Malzone > Jenn Malzone's Quotes

“What happens when people open their hearts?'

'They get better.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“I felt guilty that I hadn’t thought of Kizuki right away, as if I had somehow abandoned him. Back in my room, though, I came to think of it this way: two and a half years had gone by since it happened, and Kizuki is still seventeen years old. Not that this means my memory of him has faded. The things that his death gave rise to are still there, bright and clear, inside me, some of them even clearer than they were new. What I want to say is this: I’m going to turn twenty soon. Part of what Kizuki and I shared when we were sixteen and seventeen has already vanished, and no amount of crying is going to bring that back. I can’t explain it any better than this, but I think you can probably understand what I felt and what I am trying to say. In fact, you are probably the only one in the world who can understand.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It’s important to combine the two in just the right amount.”
― Haruki Murakami, After Dark

“And where does he now exist? is this gentle and lovely being lost for ever? Has this mind, so replete with ideas, imaginations fanciful and magnificent, which formed a world, whose existence depended on the life of its creator - has the mind perished? Does it now only exist in my memory? No, it is not thus; your form so divinely wrought, and beaming with beauty, has decayed, but your spirit still visits and consoles your unhappy friend.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus

“When I looked around, I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then a monster?”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus

“She puts her hands together and holds them at her mouth. ‘I’ve cried over you,’ she says thickly. 'But I don’t think you’ve cried over yourself, and that’s the problem.”
― Angie Thomas, On the Come Up

“It’s those things lurking at the background of attention, things that we took for granted at the time, which now evoke the past most powerfully.”
― Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures

“Identification with the alien meant the possibility of an escape from identity, into other subjectivities, other worlds.”
― Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures

“Tell me what matters,’ BZ said.
‘Nothing,’ Maria said.”
― Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays

“To learn what we fear is to learn who we are. Horror defies our boundaries and illuminates our souls.”
― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

“You know, when one's in love,' I said, 'and things go all wrong, one's terribly unhappy and one thinks one won't ever get over it. But you'll be astounded to learn what the sea will do.'

What do you mean?' she smiled.

Well, love isn't a good sailor and it languishes on a sea voyage. You'll be surprised when you have the Atlantic between you and Larry to find how slight the pang is that before you sailed seemed intolerable.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge

“The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistical and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary, it makes them , for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge

“We Americans... like change. It is at once our weakness and our strength.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge

“In business sharp practice sometimes succeeds, but in art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge

“Unless love is passion, it's not love, but something else; and passion thrives not on satisfaction, but on impediment.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge

“I think I can tell you. I’ve always felt that there was something pathetic in the founders of religion who made it a condition of salvation that you should believe in them. It’s as though they needed your faith to have faith in themselves.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge

“And that is how we are. By strength of will we cut off our inner intuitive knowledge from admitted consciousness. This causes a state of dread, or apprehension, which makes the blow ten times worse when it does fall.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover

“Agatha said, “I see.” She wrote down the word Tacky. It was something her late mother would have said about someone using a gift card at a lunch they’d invited you to.”
― Kiley Reid, Come and Get It

“You can't force a person to show up, but you can learn a lesson when they don't”
― Emily Henry, Funny Story

“And it’s true, I thought, interesting things do happen, even in the midst of the blackest nights. And when you take a spill, you can always rise up from it with something good in your hand.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Hardboiled & Hard Luck

“He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“it's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Terror made me cruel . . .”
― Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

“If you ever looked at me once with what I know is in you, I would be your slave.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“His sheer presence made a room feel warmer, made me feel like I'd been blessed. I understood exactly why people wanted to be near him, like he was kind of talisman...I knew firsthand that after talking to him, I didn't feel lonely at all. My body felt more at ease, my thoughts happier. I felt like life might yet have good things in store for me. And it wasn't a heady, unmoored feeling, but a quiet, rolling wave.
This feels good, I thought. I'm just happy he's here. I don't need him to be mine. I wanted to appreciate him the way I did giant trees in the park, which gave people shelter and relief but didn't belong to anybody. Since I'd always assumed he was something to be shared, to me he was akin to cake, or a hot spring, or good music, a steady presence I could rely on to be there when I needed to catch my breath.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Dead-End Memories: Stories

“Tomo-chan didn't have a lot of friends, but she did treasure many things: her coworkers, her parents, her pet parakeet, her pothos plants, romantic movies...the list was endless. Life, for Tomo-chan, was about making sure she was neatly surrounded by all the things that were important to her.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Dead-End Memories: Stories

“I often wonder whether those that are too pure are destined for fleeting lives, like cats that are beautiful and white as snow, or birds with gossamer feathers.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Dead-End Memories: Stories

“I'd catch Makoto gazing at me dreamily, with his big clear eyes and his surprisingly thick brows drawn into a neat line, and I would know that he was looking at the glow of my soul, or whatever it was.
Then all of a sudden, I would feel free from all the anxieties that weighed on my mind...by a strong, bright, rose-colored light.
It was only much later that I learned the light came from me, and what Makoto had done was to be its witness and protector.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Dead-End Memories: Stories

“The cards are stacked (quite properly, I imagine) against all professional aesthetes, and no doubt we all deserve the dark, wordy, academic deaths we all sooner or later die.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

“An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey