Sarah Manguso Quotes

“In my experience nursing is waiting. The mother becomes the background against which the baby lives, becomes time. I used to exist against the continuity of time. Then I became the baby's continuity, a background of ongoing time for him to live against. I was the warmth and milk that was always there for him, the agent of comfort that was always there for him.

My body, my life, became the landscape of my son's life. I am no longer merely a thing living in the world; I am a world.”
― Sarah Manguso, The Two Kinds of Decay

“My friend Isabel says, When you’re writing even a short novel, with at least a couple of subplots, and God only knows how many characters, your brain holds the volume of it beyond the ability of your consciousness.

Of course.”
― Sarah Manguso, The Two Kinds of Decay

“They are preparing to go to war, and with so little time to waste, they say what they mean.”
― Sarah Manguso, 300 Arguments: Essays

“I write in defense of the beliefs I fear are least defensible.”
― Sarah Manguso, 300 Arguments: Essays