Paint it Black Quotes

“Girls were born knowing how destructive the truth could be. They learned to hold it in, tamp it down, like gunpowder in an old fashioned gun. Then it exploded in your face on a November day in the rain.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“Whenever she thought she could not feel more alone, the universe peeled back another layer of darkness.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“They say drugs are not the answer, but really, what is the question?”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“That was what she really wanted. To forget so thoroughly she'd never have another memory again, the bitter so bitter you gave up the sweet.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“The story of her life. God gave you everything just to take it away. Just so you knew exactly what you were missing.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“She was starting to think there might be such a thing as karma - that repetition - maybe you lived through the same thing over and over until you stopped caring. Maybe eventually it got less intense, until it was just nothing.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“that was her edge. her secret weapon. she didnt give a shit.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“this was the wonderful thing about strangers. they were big blank pieces of paper, you could draw watever you like on their impresionable surfaces”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“history only existed in the human mind, subject to endless revision. 'each man kills the thing he loves'-Oscar Wilde. You kill it before it kills you, but he was wrong. you killed it by accident. thinking you were doing something else. shattering, when all you wanted to do was keep it safe.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“Kindness was the last thing she needed. She had to stay in the icy place, the numb place, and their warmth threatened to melt her just when she needed the cold.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“She was not used to being cruel, but he had taught her how.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“Although she was giddy with exhaustion, sleep was a lover who refused to be touched....”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“That kind of tenderness couldn't be permitted to last. You only got a taste, enough to know what perfection meant, and then you paid for it the rest of your life. Like the guy chained to a rock, who stole fire. The gods made an eagle eat his liver for all eternity. You paid for every second of beauty you managed to steal. ”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“The stupid things you say in the rain, that can't ever be washed away.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“You paid for every second of beauty you managed to steal.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“Why does each man kill the thing he loves?...you killed it by accident. Thinking you were doing something else. It was a cherished vase that broke while you were cleaning it. The phone rang and you dropped it. Shattering, when all you wanted was to keep it safe.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“echo, the death of a sound that had nowhere to go but to come back.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“Music. A flower in a vase on the tray. A January rose, it wouldn't last long, all big and full-blown like that. He loved things like this, fragile, that wouldn't last. She touched its silver-mauve petals, a hundred layers like an old-fashioned petticoat. The Japanese would say that's their elegance, the brevity of their beauty.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“Their love as a dragonfly, skimming over echo park, stoppin to visit the lotus. Eating dreams and drinking blue sky.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“These people picked you up and played with you and then left you lying in the rain”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“So much wanting and longing, clutching, desiring, passion and hatred and terrible need. Here, death was suitable, there was room for it, the grip of life's relentless urges slackened, replaced by this icy simplicity. This wasnt her death. It was his. That was the sad and honest truth. Though it would stay with her, it would be more like a black onyx heart on a silver chain, worn privately, under her clothes, close to her body, all her life. The guilt, the beauty, everything. It wasnt over, it had only begun. Well ok then, Okay.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“...The men eyed her with the automatic mix of curiosity, lust, and aesthetic judgment they always gave young women, subject to object, the way you'd stare at an animal. She pretended not to notice. To remind them she was a person was too much effort. Objects bore no guilt.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“like a kid kicked out of class. humiliated and free.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“Nobody ever complained? Girls were kind. No one ever told him, I could barely stay awake. If only you'd come faster, I could have ignored it altogether. Girls were born knowing how destructive the truth could be. They learned to hold it in, tamp it down, like gunpowder in an old fashioned gun. Then it exploded in your face, on a November day in the rain.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint It Black

“Darkness coiled between what he wanted them to believe and the self he despised. It only made him more alone. How could you save someone when he didn't let you kno him? What a waste. The beauty he murdered in this place. He could never see what he had, only what he failed to achieve.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“He was so damn perverse, he preferred to dream it than to make it come true.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“At every moment, each instrument knew what to play. Its little bit. But none could see the whole thing like this, all at once, only its own part. Just like life. Each person was like a line of music, but nobody knew what the symphony sounded like. Only the conductor had the whole score.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“When most people looked at Josie Tyrell, they only saw a certain collection of bones, a selection of forms filling space. But Michael saw past the mouth and the eyes, the architecture of the body, her fleshly masquerade. Other boys were happy enough to enjoy the show, they just wanted to be entertained in the body's shadow theater. But Michael had to come backstage. He went down into the mines, into the dark, and brought up the gold, your new self, a better self. But what good was it if he was just going to leave her behind? ”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“She should think about her own soul, what she was going to do with this funky tattered pond dank item. Dark and stained, a ruined thing.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“But that was the thing about zero. Its weakness. Even if zero had taken over the entire universe, the biggest fascist of all, one tiny gesture could deny it. One footprint, one atom. You didn't have to be a genius. You didn't even have to know that was what you were doing. You made a mark. You changed something. It said, "A human being passed here." And changed zero to one. ”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black