Katya Dubravin > Katya's Quotes

“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown I back, throat to the stars, "more like deer than human being." To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“It is is better to know one book intimately than a hundred superficially.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“But how,” said Charles, who was close to tears, “how can you possibly justify cold-blooded murder?’
Henry lit a cigarette. “I prefer to think of it,” he had said, “as redistribution of matter.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“In short: I felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“All art is quite useless.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“If I cannot climb, I will grow.”
― Zeppazariel, Crimson Rivers

“No one ever thinks to look up.”
― Zeppazariel, Crimson Rivers

“Death does not erase the point of life. A dead flower does not mean it never bloomed. It did, and it was beautiful.”
― Zeppazariel, Crimson Rivers

“I love you more than the tides love the moon.
I'm as temperamental as the ocean, and just the same, I'm at your mercy. Give me a ship, and I will wreck it at your command.”
― Zeppazariel, Crimson Rivers

“I'd die for them, but I'd live for you.”
― Zeppazariel, Crimson Rivers

“That's what people don't tell you about grief, about loss; you do get farther away from it with time, and as much as you might wish not to, you forget the very things you want to cling to.”
― Zeppazariel, Crimson Rivers

“I don't want to be a great big tragedy anymore," Regulus cokes out, looking at him almost desperately.
"Me neither," James admits. "Maybe someday, we won't be. Maybe, one day, well look at each other and see that other life, and maybe we actually get to have it. I can find it in we to hope for that, even after everything. I've had so much practice these last ten years, so I'll just do it for us both.”
― Bizarrestars, Crimson Rivers

“I'm tired of breaking your heart, you've been so gentle with mine.”
― bizarrestars, Crimson Rivers

“But, when you love someone, it can feel like you'll never survive the loss of them, and then, somehow, you do.”
― Bizarrestars, Crimson Rivers

“How do you kill what's already dead?
You revive it just to watch it rot.”
― Zeppazariel, Crimson Rivers

“Putting off your own issues to be there for everyone else doesn't mean you're fine. If anything, that means you're less fine than everyone else, because you're not even letting yourself deal with your problems.”
― Zeppazariel, Crimson Rivers

“Think about it, love. A slap across the face is just a hand cradling a cheek with too much force," James says, his mouth dry. "I can take it. I swear I can take it. I might even like the way it stings, so long as it's your hand that leaves the mark.”
― Zeppazariel, Crimson Rivers

“His little brother.

Always his little brother.”
― Zeppazariel, Crimson Rivers

“Me and you," Regulus says.

"Me and you," Sirius agrees.”
― Zeppazariel, Crimson Rivers

“If there's one thing I've learned, though, impermanence only solidifies importance. You can learn through loss to better cherish what you have, and be thankful for what you got. It's awful, mostly, but you look back and there are glimpses that you can't bring yourself to regret. The inevitability of endings can't remove all that came before it. That still exists, and we get that, and we keep that. And that's—that's special. That's precious.”
― Zeppazariel, Crimson Rivers

“You want me? I'm here. I'm right fucking here, love. Use me. Have me, then discard me. Hurt me. I don't care, Regulus. You can do anything to me, and I'll thank you for it every time.”
― bizarrestars, Crimson Rivers

“But, when you love someone, it can feel like you'll never survive the loss of them, and then, somehow, you do.”
― Zeppazariel, Crimson Rivers

“You're my favorite hello”
― Zeppazariel, Crimson Rivers