Jenn > Jenn's Quotes

“Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions.”
― Anaïs Nin, HENRY AND JUNE

“There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierarchy: the kisses alone don't work.”
― Anaïs Nin, HENRY AND JUNE

“He could hear Donald saying something else but it didn't matter anymore what, because then and there it occurred to him that maybe the emptiness he'd been living with all this time hadn't really been emptiness at all, but loneliness gone unrecognized. How can a mind know how alone it is until it brushes up against some other mind? A single mark had been made, another person's memory imposed onto his mind, and now the magnitude of his own loss was impossible for Samson to ignore. It was breathtaking. He sank to his knees...It was as if a match had been struck, throwing light on just how dark it was.”
― Nicole Krauss, Man Walks into a Room

“In the same way that certain sections of the city were mortal battlegrounds, some parts of the calendar were always more warlike than others, and during the days between Christmas and the new year all elements seemed to conspire to subdue the soul. Fire, rain, sickness, cold, and death were everywhere spread through the dark as in a painting of hell. People struggled until exhaustion, giving everything they had, and the days were packed with trials and mysteries.”
― Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale

“Great loves have legs and wings. They are substantial. They do not dissapate so easily... Great loves have staying power. Or so I told myself.”
― Erica Jong, Sappho's Leap

“When they touched it was like touching her own body. From childhood they had been the same height; their arms and legs and hands were still perfectly congruent. Only the centers of them were different, aching, fascinated, every part of them heated to the same temperature as the sun warmed pond.”
― Jennifer Haigh, Mrs. Kimble

“He that endureth to the end, shall be saved.”
― Steve Berry, The Romanov Prophecy

“When you live alone, your furnishings, your possessions, are always confronting you with the thinness of your existence.”
― Zoe Heller, Notes on a Scandal: What Was She Thinking?

“How to describe hell? Disembowelled landscape busy with suffering, incessant heat, permanent scarlet twilight, a swirling snowfall of ash, the stink of pain and the din of...if only, hell is two things: the absence of God and the presence of time. Infinite variations on that theme. Doesn't sound so bad, does it? Well, trust me.”
― Glen Duncan, I, Lucifer

“No one's life should be rooted in fear. We are born for wonder, for joy, for hope, for love, to marvel at the mystery of existence, to be ravished by the beauty of the world, to seek truth and meaning, to acquire wisdom, and by our treatment of others to brighten the corner where we are.”
― Dean R. Koontz, Life Expectancy

“Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them, standing on the edge of the water, scanning the horizon for the tiny ship. Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waiting. Why has he gone where I cannot follow?”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“It is a brave and stupid thing, a beautiful thing, to waste one's life for love.”
― Andrew Sean Greer, The Confessions of Max Tivoli

“Happiness always has an object... Depends on external things. Joy... Has no object. It seizes you for no apparent reason, it's like the sun, its burning is fueled by its own heart.”
― Susanna Tamaro, Follow Your Heart

“When we're awake, we see what we need to see. When we're asleep, we see what is really there.”
― Jodi Picoult, Second Glance

“Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult, I've decided, is only a slow sewing shut.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

“That on any day you could pick there are thousands and thousands of little deaths, tiny tragedies, and that all of them matter.”
― Philip Beard, Dear Zoe

“I couldn't help but think, This car is taking me to a mental hospital and my mother is treating it like open-mic night at a Greenwich Village café.”
― Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors

“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”
― Franz Kafka

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
― Groucho Marx

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Take no heed of her.... She reads a lot of books.”
― Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

“The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real. I know that, and I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle.”
― Stephen King, Night Shift

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“A tragedy is a tragedy, and at the bottom, all tragedies are stupid. Give me a choice and I'll take A Midsummer Night's Dream over Hamlet every time. Any fool with steady hands and a working set of lungs can build up a house of cards and then blow it down, but it takes a genius to make people laugh.”
― Stephen King

“Time’s a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?” Scotty shook his head. “The goon won.”
― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

“I'm always happy," Sasha said. "Sometimes I just forget.”
― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

“If I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.”
― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

“..."better to have loved and lost" bullshit. Don't show me paradise and then burn it down.”
― Harlan Coben