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Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson Quotes

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Famous Jeanette Winterson Quotes

“There's no such thing as effortless beauty - you should know that. There's no effort which is not beautiful - lifting a heavy stone or loving you. Loving you is like lifting a heavy stone. It would be easier not to do it and I'm not quite sure why I am doing it. It takes all my strength and all my determination, and I said I wouldn't love someone again like this. Is there any sense in loving someone you can only wake up to by chance?”

KnowsShouldSaidWould BeBeautifulChanceEffortEasierDeterminationStonesWake UpHeavyLove SomeoneLiftingLoving YouLoving SomeoneEffortless
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“The baby explodes into an unknown world that is only knowable through some kind of a story – of course that is how we all live, it’s the narrative of our lives, but adoption drops you into the story after it has started. It’s like reading a book with the first few pages missing. It’s like arriving after curtain up. The feeling that something is missing never, ever leaves you – and it can’t, and it shouldn’t, because something is missing.”

WorldFirstsKindBookStoriesFeelingsCoursesReadingOur LivesMissingBabyPagesNarrativeAdoptionCurtainsArrivingMissing ItUnknown Worlds
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“I believe in fiction and the power of stories because that way we speak in tongues. We are not silenced. All of us, when in deep trauma, find we hesitate, we stammer; there are long pauses in our speech. The thing is stuck. We get our language back through the language of others. We can turn to the poem. We can open the book. Somebody has been there for us and deep-dived the words.”

WayBelieveLongHas BeensBookStoriesTurnsSpeakLanguageI BelieveFictionSpeechI Believe InTraumaTongueStuckPausesPower Of Stories
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become.”

WellsFactsLife IsValuesReadingFictionMetsPassionateRelevantYearningLiberating
Book:Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
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“And if I say to you that I am glad of everything we have done together, and sorry that we will not be here together in forty years, laughing at a faded photo of you impersonating a lion, it having withered well, you less so, as we stand fabulously old, in a city that understands what spirit it takes to be old, to be beautiful, to be much looked at, to be itself, to be never quite caught, to have a past, to be content, to have seen much, to have remained, to have continued...”

IfsYearsWellsDoneTogetherPastBeautifulSpiritCitiesLaughingSorryCaughtGladFortyLionsFadedWithered
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“No. Take the heart first. Then you don't feel the cold so much. The pain so much. With the heart gone, there's no reason to stay your hand. Your eyes can look on death and not tremble. It's the heart that betrays us, makes us weep, makes us bury our friends when we should be marching ahead. It's the heart that sickens us at night and makes us hate who we are. It's the heart that sings old songs and brings memories of warm days.”

LifeFeelsShouldFirstsLooksHeartReasonHandsEyePainNightHateSongMemoriesGoneColdWarmWho We AreNo ReasonBetrayOld SongReason To Stay
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“I had lines inside me, a string of guiding lights. I had language. Fiction and poetry are doses, medicines. What they heal is the rupture reality makes on the imagination. I had been damaged, and a very important part of me had been destroyed - that was my reality, the facts of my life. But on the other side of the facts was who I could be, how I could feel. And as long as I had words for that, images for that, stories for that, then I wasn't lost.”

FeelsLongImportantFactsStoriesRealityLightLostLanguageSidesImaginationLinesHealingFictionMedicineHealDestroyedStringsTeensDoseRuptureGuiding Light
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“If the sun is shining, stand in it- yes, yes, yes. Happy times are great, but happy times pass- they have to- because time passes. The pursuit of happiness is more elusive; it is life-long, and it is not goal-centred. What you are pursuing is meaning- a meaningful life... There are times when it will go so wrong that you will be barely alive, and times when you realise that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else's terms.”

IfsLongGoalTermHalfSunAliveShiningMeaningfulPursuitRealisingLong LifePursuit Of HappinessMeaningful LifeElusiveTime PassesHappy TimesHalf Life
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“She said she’d often wondered why she wanted to do some things and not do other things at all. Well, it was obvious with some things, but for others, there was no reason there. She’d spent a long time puzzling it out, then she thought that what you’d done in a past life you didn’t need to do again, and what you had to do in the future, you wouldn’t be ready to do now.”

NeedsWellsLongSaidReasonDoneWantedPastReadyLong TimeObviousNo ReasonPast LifePuzzling
Book:Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
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“It’s better to think of my life like that— part miracle, part madness. It’s better if I accept that I can’t control any of the things that matter. My life is a trail of shipwrecks and set-sails. There are no arrivals, no destinations; there are only sandbanks and shipwreck; then another boat, another tide.”

IfsThinkingI CanMatterLife IsAcceptingMiracleMadnessBoatDestinationTidesSailTrailsArrivalsThings That MatterShipwreck
Book:Lighthousekeeping
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“I did not realize that when money becomes a core value, then education drives towards utility or that the life of the mind will not be counted as good unless it produces measurable results. That public services will no longer be important. That an alternative life to getting and spending will become very difficult as cheap housing disappears. That when communities are destroyed only misery and intolerance are left.”

MindImportantValuesLeftDifficultRealizingCommunityResultsProduceMiserySpendingDisappearCoreDestroyedAlternativesIntoleranceHousingUtilityPublic ServiceCore Values
Book:Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
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“Today, the sun is everywhere, and everything solid is nothing but its own shadow, I know that the real things in life, the things I remember, the things I turn over in my hands, are not houses, bank accounts, prizes or promotions. What I remember is love -- all love -- love of this dirt road, this sunrise, a day by the river, the stranger I met in a café. Myself, even, which is the hardest thing of all to love, because love and selfishness are not the same thing. It is easy to be selfish. It is hard to love who I am. No wonder I am surprised if you do.”

IfsKnowsRealHardHandsTodayRememberTurnsHouseEasyWonderSunMetsShadowRiversAccountsStrangerSelfishWho I AmHardestSelfishnessPrizeThings In LifeDirtSunriseHardest ThingPromotionReal ThingsBank AccountsBeing SelfishDirt Roads
Book:Lighthousekeeping
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