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Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson Quotes

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Famous Jeanette Winterson Quotes

“What a strange world it is where you can have as much sex as you like but love is taboo. I'm talking about the real thing, the grand passion, which may not allow affection or convenience or happiness. The truth is that love smashes into your life like an ice floe, and even if your heart is built like the Titanic you go down. That's the size of it, the immensity of it. It's not proper, it's not clean, it's not containable.”

IfsWorldLoveHeartMayRealPassionSexLove IsTalkingStrangeTruth IsBuiltCleanSizeAffectionIceConvenienceTabooReal ThingsImmensityStrange World
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“When my friend Melot set the trap, I think I knew it. I turned to death full face, as I had turned to love with my whole body. I would let death enter me as you had entered me. You had crept along my blood vessels through the wound, and the blood that circulates returns to the heart. You circulated me, you made me blush like a girl in the hoop of your hands. You were in my arteries and my lymph, you were the colour just under my skin, and if I cut myself, it was you I bled. Red Isolde, alive on my fingers, and always the force of blood pushing you back to my heart.”

IfsThinkingHeartMadeWholeBodyHandsFacesGirlForceCuttingAliveBloodReturnMy HeartMy FriendsRedSkinsFingersWoundsColourPushingTrapsVesselArteriesBlood Vessels
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“You’ll get over it…” It’s the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because ‘it” is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?”

PeopleWantLoveHeartPersonsMadeEnoughPainCausesLosesLossLove IsTroubleLove YouMy HeartFitShapesHolesGrievingOver ItGapsPregnancyGet OverSomeone You LoveHole In My Heart
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don't want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don't want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you.”

WantShouldHeartHomeNightRocksContradictionComing HomeI Want YouShould IFind MeWant To Be With YouI Want To Be With You
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“St Paul said it is better to marry than to burn, but my mother taught me it is better to burn than to marry. She wanted to be a nun. She hoped I would be a priest and saved to give me an education while my friends plaited rope and trailed after the plough. I can't be a priest because although my heart is as loud as hers I can pretend no answering riot. I have shouted to God and the Virgin, but they have not shouted back and I'm not interested in the still small voice. Surely a god can meet passion with passion? She says he can. Then he should.”

GivingShouldHeartSaidStillsI CanWould BeWantedMotherPassionVoiceTaughtMy HeartMy FriendsGive MeSavedLoudPriestsNot InterestedVirginsRopeRiotNunSmall Voice
Book:The Passion
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“Lovers are not at their best when it matters. Mouths dry up, palms sweat, conversation flags and all the time the heart is threatening to fly from the body once and for all. Lovers have been known to have heart attacks. Lovers drink too much from nervousness and cannot perform. They eat too little and faint during their fervently wished consummation. They do not stroke the favoured cat and their face-paint comes loose. This is not all. Whatever you have set store by, your dress, your dinner, your poetry, will go wrong.”

HeartLittlesHas BeensMatterBodyFacesKnownToo MuchLoversDrinkConversationMouthsCatDressesPaintDinnerStoresDrySweatFlagsStrokesThreateningPalmsHeart AttackNervousnessDry Up
Book:The Passion
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“People do go back, but they don't survive, because two realities are claiming them at the same time. Such things are too much. You can salt your heart, or kill your heart, or you can choose between the two realities. There is much pain here. Some people think you can have your cake and eat it. The cake goes mouldy and they choke on what's left. Going back after a long time will make you mad, because the people you left behind do not like to think of you changed, will treat you as they always did, accuse you of being indifferent, when you are only different.”

PeopleThinkingHeartLongTwoDifferentRealityPainLeftBehindsToo MuchChangedLong TimeTreatsMadCakeSaltIndifferentLeft BehindChokeThink Of YouYou Changed
Book:Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
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“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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“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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“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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“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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