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Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson Quotes

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Famous Jeanette Winterson Quotes

“The truth is that you can divide your heart in all sorts of interesting ways - a little here, a little there, most banked at home, some of it coined out for a flutter. But love cleaves through the mind's mathematics. Love's lengthways splits the heart in two - the heart where you are, the heart where you want to be. How will you heal your heart when love has split it in two?”

WayWantMindHeartLittlesTwoHomeInterestingTruth IsMathematicsHealWhere You AreDividesSplitsInteresting Ways
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“In this life you have to be your own hero. By that I mean you have to win whatever it is that matters to you by your own strength and in your own way. Like it or not, you are alone in a forest, just like all those fairy tales that begin with a hero who’s usually stupid but somehow brave, or who might be clever, but weak as a straw, and away he goes (don’t worry about the gender), cheered on by nobody, via the castles and the bears, and the old witch and the enchanted stream, and by and by (we hope) he’ll find the treasure.”

WayMeanMatterMightWinningWorryStupidBearsHeroWeakBraveGenderTreasureCleverTalesForestsThis LifeStreamsFairyWitchFairy TaleCastlesStrawsEnchanted
Book:The Powerbook
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“Who taught you to write in blood on my back? Who taught you to use your hands as branding irons? You have scored your name into my shoulders, referenced me with your mark. The pads of your fingers have become printing blocks, you tap a message on to my skin, tap meaning into my body. Your morse code interferes with my heart beat. I had a steady heart before I met you, I relied upon it, it had seen active service and grown strong. Now you alter its pace with your own rhythm, you play upon me, drumming me taut.”

WritingHeartPlayUseBodyHandsNamesStrongBloodTaughtMy HeartMetsMessagesBeatsSkinsMarkFingersActiveShouldersBlockRhythmCodeIronPaceSteadyBrandingInterferePrintingPadsHeart BeatDrummingMorse CodeBefore I Met You
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“The continuous narrative of existence is a lie. There is no continuous narrative, there are lit-up moments, and the rest is dark. When you look closely, the twenty-four hour day is framed into a moment; the still-life of the jerky amphetamine world. That woman-a pieta. Those men, rough angels with an unknown message. The children holding hands, spanning time. And in every still-life, there is a story, the story that tells you everything you need to know.”

KnowsMenWorldNeedsLooksChildrenStillsMomentsStoriesHandsLyingHoursDarkExistenceFourMessagesAngelTwentiesNarrativeRoughLitFramedHolding HandsStill LifeAmphetamines
Book:Lighthousekeeping
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“Where did love begin?What human being looked at another and saw in their face the forests and the sea? Was there a day, exhausted and weary,dragging home food, arms cut and scarred, that you saw yellow flowers and, not knowing what you did, picked them because I love you? In the fossil record of our existence, there is no trace of love. You cannot find it held in the earth's crust, waiting to be discovered. The long bones of our ancestors show nothing of their hearts.”

HumansHeartLongShowsHomeEarthFacesWaitingHuman BeingsExistenceKnowingRecordsSawsCuttingSeaLove YouFlowerArmsBonesForestsYellowAncestorNot KnowingWearyExhaustedFossilsYellow Flower
Book:Lighthousekeeping
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“The Hopi, an Indian tribe, have a language as sophisticated as ours, but no tenses for past, present and future. The division does not exist. What does this say about time? Matter, that thing the most solid and the well-known, which you are holding in your hands and which makes up your body, is now known to be mostly empty space. Empty space and points of light. What does this say about the reality of the world?”

WorldWellsDoeMatterBodyHandsRealityLightPastLanguageSpaceKnownEmptyYour BodyIndianDivisionSophisticatedTribesWell KnownEmpty SpacePast PresentPast Present And FuturePoints Of LightIndian Tribes
Book:Sexing the Cherry
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“Explore me' you said and I collected my ropes, flasks and maps, expecting to be back home soon. I dropped into the mass of you and I cannot find the way out. Sometimes I think I’m free, coughed up like Jonah from the whale, but then I turn a corner and recognise myself again. Myself in your skin, myself lodged in your bones, myself floating in the cavities that decorate every surgeon’s wall. That is how I know you. You are what I know.”

ThinkingKnowsWaySaidSometimesHomeTurnsWallMassSkinsCornersBonesMapsExpectingFloatingRopeRecogniseSurgeonsWhalesBack HomeJonahFlasks
Book:Written On The Body
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“I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it.”

IfsThinkingKnowsHumansStillsCompanyRolesMissingEmotionalModelsMy FriendsServantRole ModelsBetrayLoyalHuman RelationshipsGod ExistsServant Of God
Book:Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
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“And so, from the first, we separated our pleasure. She lay on the rug and I lay at right angles to her so that only our lips might meet. Kissing in this way is the strangest of distractions. The greedy body that clamors for satisfaction is forced to content itself with a single sensation and, just as the blind hear more acutely and the deaf can feel the grass grow, so the mouth becomes the focus of love and all things pass through it and are re-defined. It is a sweet and precise torture.”

WayFeelsFirstsBodyMightGrowsPleasureFocusSweetKissingMouthsAll ThingsBlindLaysLipsSatisfactionDefinedGrassTortureSensationsDistractionPreciseAngleGreedyDeafClamor
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“I didn't want to be in the teeming mass of the working class.[...] I didn't want to live and die in the same place with only a week at the seaside in between. I dreamed of escape - but what is terrible about industrialisation is that it makes escape necessary. In a system that generates masses, individualism is the only way out. But then what happens to community - to society?”

WayWantHappensDiesCommunityClassWeekTerribleMassIndividualismWorking Class
Book:Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
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“I had no one to help me, but the T. S. Eliot helped me. So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language – and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers – a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.”

PeopleNeedsSaidEnoughHelpingSchoolLiteratureLanguageEasyPowerfulClassOur LivesMiddleStupidStrangeOffersFindingsToughEducatedLuxuryHelp MeMiddle ClassPoetry IsSuspectsHidingIrrelevantStupid ThingsHiding PlaceEliotTough Life
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“Life…we understand it differently at different stages. It’s what is interesting about getting older, you realize your relationship with the past is always negotiable. There is a lot of freedom in that, because you realize you can go back to what you did such a long time ago. You can talk with the dead, talk with your lost self, your disappeared self, and you can visit those places again, and understand it differently. That makes a huge difference.”

LongDifferentSelfPastLostRealizingDifferencesInterestingStageHugeLong TimeGetting OlderLong Time Ago
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“I believe you have to write every day–make the time. It’s about having an organized mind instead of a chaotic and untidy one. There is a myth that writers are bohemian and do what they like in their own way. Real writers are the most organized people on the planet. You have to be. You’re doing the work and running your own business as well. It’s an incredibly organized state. [Also reading]…one of the things reading does do is discipline your mind. There are no writers who are not readers.”

PeopleWayWritingMindBelieveWellsDoeRealStatesRunningReadingI BelievePlanetsReaderDisciplineMythOrganizedBe YouChaoticOwn BusinessBohemianOrganized Mind
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“Two hundred miles from the surface of the earth there is no gravity. The laws of motion are suspended. You could turn somersaults slowly slowly, weight into weightlessness, nowhere to fall. As you lay on your back paddling in space you might notice your feet had fled your head. You are stretching slowly slowly, getting longer, your joints are slipping away from their usual places. There is no connection between your shoulder and your arm. You will break up bone by bone, fractured from who you are, drifting away now, the centre cannot hold.”

TwoMightEarthLawTurnsFallSpaceBreakFeetArmsHundredConnectionsWeightWho You AreLaysBonesSurfaceMilesShouldersUsualGravityCentreJointsStretchingDriftingSuspendedSlippingPaddlingSlipping AwayLaws Of MotionWeightlessnessDrifting Away
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“This is where the story starts, in this threadbare room. The walls are exploding. The windows have turned into telescopes. Moon and stars are magnified in this room. The sun hangs over the mantelpiece. I stretch out my hand and reach the corners of the world. The world is bundled up in this room. Beyond the door, where the river is, where the roads are, we shall be. We can take the world with us when we go and sling the sun under your arm. Hurry now, it's getting late. I don't know if this is a happy ending but here we are let loose in open fields.”

IfsKnowsWorldStoriesHandsStarsRoomsSunDoorsFieldsWallArmsMoonLateRiversWindowCornersHappy EndingsTelescopesExplodingCorners Of The WorldMoon And StarsHang OverOpen Fields
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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