Jonathan Lee > Jonathan's Quotes

“Viv used to say there were two types of person in life, past tense and present tense. Viv had seen herself as a present-tense person, which gave her an excuse never to discuss what she felt about a thing that had already happened.”
― Jonathan Lee, High Dive

“You disintegrated into the recriminations, the headlines, the pictures. You scattered yourself into proofs, warnings, suspicions, arrests. You rode out into the dark outrage of others, saw human loss shaped towards political ends, and though you hoped for the occasional gleam of uncontaminated compassion it seemed that the world was dimming.”
― Jonathan Lee, High Dive

“She hated this feeling, the sensation of trying and failing to get her arms around something big. The way political opinions seemed always to be expressed with a total sureness of tone. The way that sureness was at odds with every true thought she'd ever had.”
― Jonathan Lee, High Dive

“It is always better to clear the air, even if the air often stinks.”
― Jonathan Lee, High Dive

“The sagebrush is so short in some places that it is not large enough to make a fire, so we had to drive until quite late before we camped that night. After driving all day over what seemed a level desert of sand, we came about sundown to a beautiful cañon, down which we had to drive for a couple of miles before we could cross. In the cañon the shadows had already fallen, but when we looked up we could see the last shafts of sunlight on the tops of the great bare buttes. Suddenly a great wolf started from somewhere and galloped along the edge of the cañon, outlined black and clear by the setting sun. His curiosity overcame him at last, so he sat down and waited to see what manner of beast we were. I reckon he was disappointed for he howled most dismally. I thought of Jack London's "The Wolf.”
― Elinore Pruitt Stewart, Letters Of A Woman Homesteader: By Elinore Pruitt : Illustrated

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“...But doesn't it take greater strength to walk a mile in pain than seven miles in none? You are a woman, and must begin to live like one. By which I mean: have courage.”
― Sarah Perry, The Essex Serpent

“There are certain grudges that are every bit as irrational as they are uplifting. A person must protect them at all costs, especially in old age.”
― Jonathan Lee, The Great Mistake

“At the age of eighty-three he had the self-awareness necessary to be patient with other people, but not always the facility to disguise the effort.”
― Jonathan Lee, The Great Mistake

“He loved New York. He hated it. It was a cathedral of possibilities, it would never settle down.”
― Jonathan Lee

“A childhood never fully dies. Stories of life come up through cracks in the accounts, the spaces between death sentences, the pauses in obituaries, finding light and air to grow.”
― Jonathan Lee, The Great Mistake

“His family feared he might one day succumb to the catastrophe of being a poet.”
― Jonathan Lee, The Great Mistake

“Mother died when he was twelve. He did not want sympathy, he only wanted her back.”
― Jonathan Lee, The Great Mistake

“Every murder needs a murderer, just as every egg invites a spoon or knife. The thin white shell would not make any sense unless breakage was part of its plan.”
― Jonathan Lee, The Great Mistake

“He would go looking for it everywhere in the years to come. Love, love, love. As if it were a coin to be found in a field, or a park. As if it could be obtained without forfeiture.”
― Jonathan Lee, The Great Mistake

“So yes, he could be funny. If you thought such things were funny. And the coffee had to be made with a specific number of beans. He could taste any errors in arithmetic.”
― Jonathan Lee, The Great Mistake

“He is wearing the better of the two worst shirts his third-favorite brother let him borrow.”
― Jonathan Lee, The Great Mistake

“Love. This was the way not to fall into forgetting. Love, and a good publicist.”
― Jonathan Lee, The Great Mistake

“Yet for all the depression no one ever quit. When someone quit, we couldn't believe it. 'I'm becoming a rafting instructor on the Colorado River,' they said. 'I'm touring college towns with my garage band.' We were dumbfounded. It was like they were from another planet. Where had they found the derring-do? What would they do about car payments? We got together for going away drinks on their final day and tried to hide our envy while reminding ourselves that we still had the freedom and luxury to shop indiscriminately.”
― Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End