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“There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.”
― The Bell Jar
― The Bell Jar
“When they asked me what I wanted to be I said I didn’t know.
"Oh, sure you know," the photographer said.
"She wants," said Jay Cee wittily, "to be everything.”
― The Bell Jar
"Oh, sure you know," the photographer said.
"She wants," said Jay Cee wittily, "to be everything.”
― The Bell Jar
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― The Bell Jar
― The Bell Jar
“All the heat and fear had purged itself. I felt surprisingly at peace. The bell jar hung suspended a few feet above my head. I was open to the circulating air. ”
― The Bell Jar
― The Bell Jar
“The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence.”
― The Bell Jar
― The Bell Jar
Octavian’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Octavian’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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