agta > agta's Quotes

“I also know how much of yourself you have to leave behind in order to look like everyone else.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“He smiled so that I could take his smile with me.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“I sense the ambition and ease of a generation that has grown up on a much smaller planet. Those who consider travel an ordinary adventure rather than a grand expedition, for whom a quiet life is considered a slow death. I see this child of the world and can't help but think how fate probably would have played out differently had his father been driven by the same curiosity. If he had not lived in another day. If he had known how to free himself.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“In the end, love was only possible because he saw me not as who I was, but as the person I would become.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“I wrote the word: love. I did consider using another one. It's a curious notion, love; difficult to identify and define. There are so many degrees and variations. I could have contented myself with saying that I was smitten (and it is true that Thomas knew how to make me weaken), or infatuated (he could conquer, clatter, even bewitch like no one else), or obsessed (he often provoked a mixture of bewilderment and excitement, turning everything upside down), or seduced (once he caught me in his net, there was so no escaping), or taken with (I was stupidly joyful, I could heat up over nothing), or even blinded (anything that embarrassed me, I pushed to the side, minimizing his defects, putting his good qualities on a pedestal), or disturbed (no longer was I ever quite myself), which would have had less positive connotations. I could have explained it away as a mere affection, having a 'crush,' an explanation vague enough to mean anything. But those would just have been words. The truth, the brutal truth, was that I was in love. Enough to use the right word.

All the same, I wondered if this could be a complete invention. As you already know, I invented stories all the time, with so much authenticity that people usually ended up believing me sometimes even I was no longer able to disentangle the true from the false). Could I have made this story up from scratch? Could I have turned an erotic obsession into a passion? Yes, it's possible.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“I know that Thomas consented to this single picture only because he knew (had decided) that it was our last moment together. He smiled so that I could take his smile with me.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“I think I love him for this loneliness, that it's what pushed me toward him. I love his aloofness, his disengagement with the outside world. Such singularity moves me.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“He goes back to the books—this crazy number of books in the house neatly lined up or stacked in piles. All of a sudden I see a sort of admiration return to his face, but it’s a painful admiration; what he likes about me is also what keeps me separate from him.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“I add: It was then that we lost touch, he and I. These last words are articulated with the least possible affect, as if life is just like that sometimes, you spend time together and then lose touch and life goes on—as if there were no breaks from which you never quite recover.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“In short, this summer of 1984 should not have been any different. There is always the large bay of Rivedoux, the small cliffs of La Flotte, the flat beaches of Bois-Plage, the marches of Ars, the rocky point of Saint-Clement. The hollyhocks in alleys, pine needles crunching underfoot in the forest of Trousse-Chemise, the green oaks under which one goes to find shade. The fortifications of Vauban to protect me from imaginary invasions, the open-air abbey that always terrified me at night, and the Whales lighthouse, whose spinning light makes me dizzy. Always the same boys my age; before we went to the carousel, now we go to the bar. Everything is in its place, everything reassures me. Except that I miss Thomas. I miss him terribly. And that changes everything. Have you noticed how the most beautiful landscapes lose their brilliance as soon as our thoughts prevent us from seeing them properly?”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“I don’t know then that one day I won’t be seventeen. I don’t know that youth doesn’t last, that it’s only a moment, and then it disappears and by the time you finally realize it, it’s too late. It’s finished, vanished, lost.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“While the credits roll he says: That scene with the chain saw was great, wasn’t it? I look at him and joke: Yeah, I almost grabbed you at that moment. He smiles back at me and I receive his smile like a gift. There weren’t many times Thomas smiled at me like that. It wasn’t his way.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“Lucas adds: Even so, there is something that has always struck me in the photos . . . my father often looks sad. I guess he didn’t like having to smile on command.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“He says: It’s a letter that was written a long time ago but never sent. It’s addressed to you. It starts with your first name. It dates from August 1984.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“It was love, of course. And tomorrow, there will be a great emptiness. But we could not continue—you have your life waiting for you, and I will never change. I just wanted to write to tell you that I have been happy during these months together, that I have never been so happy, and that I already know I will never be so happy again.”
― Philippe Besson, Lie With Me

“We are two queer women, and we're going to use this drive back to the cabin to do what queer women do."
Blood pressure: rising. "And, uh, what's that?"
"We're going to talk about our feelings"
Well. That's worse than I predicted.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“Your trauma is something that happened to you; it’s not who you are.”
― Alison Cochrun, Kiss Her Once for Me

“But, you know, that feeling? When you wake up in the morning and you have somebody to think about? Somewhere for hope to go? It's good. Even when it's bad, it's good.”
― Casey McQuiston, One Last Stop

“When you spend your whole life alone, it's incredibly appealing to move somewhere big enough to get lost in. Where being alone looks like a choice.”
― Casey McQuiston, One Last Stop

“Big dick energy is gender-neutral”
― Casey McQuiston, One Last Stop

“And again, a group of soldiers capture a girl, rape her, then kill her, twenty-five years to the day before I was born; this minor detail, which others might not give a second thought, will stay with me”
― Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

“Besides, sometimes it’s inevitable for the past to be forgotten, especially if the present is no less horrific;”
― Adania Shibli, Minor Detail