Kat asked Janet Fitch:

Hi Janet! I've read "White Oleander" 10+ times now; it seems I need to read it yearly. It's truly my favorite novel, and one of my favorite parts is when Astrid is considering Claire's pearls and wishes her life could be knotted like a pearl necklace so even if something broke, the whole thing wouldn't come apart. Do you recall a particular line or passage from a book you've read that resonated strongly with you?

Janet Fitch So many! If you cruise through some of my reviews, you'll see them everywhere. Passages from Justine by Lawrence Durrell, from Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry,
from Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler,
from Didion's Play it as it Lays (the dialogue is incredible). "Don't get into that."
"He's your friend."
Les Plesko's The Last Bongo Sunset. Lots of poetry. Dylan Thomas--"Dilly dilly come let us die..." Anne Carson's The Beauty of the Husband, "Beauty is what makes sex, sex."

Here's passage from Durrell. It's so beautiful, it's like a song: "Six o'clock. The shuffling of white-robed figures from the station yards. The shops filling and emptying like lungs in the Rue Des Sours. The pale lengthening rays of the afternoon sun smear the long curves of the Esplanade, and the dazzled pigeons, like rings of scattered paper, climb apogee the minarets to take the last rays of the waning light on their wings..."

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