The Goldfinch

by Donna Tartt

(This was another bad habit we’d fallen into, thanks to years of life with my father: trying to read each other’s minds.)

Unreliable I guess is the diplomatic way of putting it.

keeping busy is the only thing in the world that’ll make you feel better.”

he was the kind of man people liked to entrust with their sadnesses.

When he laughed, his air of gloom and anxiety evaporated; you could feel his good-nature, it radiated off him.

the ocean gives me the shivers

Son of a schoolteacher.

Sonia school teacher!!

though my endless cramming felt a lot more like self destruction than any glue-sniffing I’d ever done;

You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life

unbearable claustrophobia of the soul,

“I guess I’ll have to sort this all out in my mind some time. It’s going to be a job. Like, this thing over there… that over here. Two different piles. Three different piles maybe.”

‘No sense of gratitude.’ I’ll drink to that, I guess.”

the world is much stranger than we know or can say.

you don’t think, ‘oh, I love this picture because it’s universal.’ ‘I love this painting because it speaks to all mankind.’ That’s not the reason anyone loves a piece of art. It’s a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes you.”

no one will ever, ever be able to persuade me that life is some awesome, rewarding treat. Because, here’s the truth: life is catastrophe.