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Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson Quotes

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Famous Jeanette Winterson Quotes

“One of the many, many things I hate about war is how it trivializes the personal. The big themes, the broad sweep, the emergency measures, the national identity, all the things that a particular kind of man with a particular kind of power urge adores, these are the things that become important. War gives the lie to the personal, drowns it in meetings, alarms, sacrifices. The personal is only allowed to return as death.”

MenGivingKindImportantWarBigsLyingHateSacrificeIdentityParticularHe ManReturnI HateMeetingsThemeUrgesBroadsAdoreEmergenciesAlarmsNational IdentityThings I Hate
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“When I left home at sixteen I bought a small rug. It was my roll-up world. Whatever room, whatever temporary place I had, I unrolled the rug. It was a map of myself. Invisible to others, but held in the rug, were all the places I had stayed - for a few weeks, for a few months. On the first night anywhere new I liked to lie in bed and look at the rug to remind myself that I had what I needed even though what I had was so little. Sometimes you have to live in precarious and temporary places. Unsuitable places. Wrong places. Sometimes the safe place won’t help you.”

WorldFirstsLooksLittlesSometimesHelpingHomeLyingNightLeftRoomsWeekMonthsNeededBedSafeInvisibleMapsTemporarySixteenPrecariousSafe Places
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“We're a lukewarm people for all our feast days and hard work. Not much touches us, but we long to be touched. We lie awake at night willing the darkness to part and show us a vision. Our children frighten us in their intimacy, but we make sure they grow up like us. Lukewarm like us. On a night like this, hands and faces hot, we can believe that tomorrow will show us angels in jars and that the well-known woods will suddenly reveal another path.”

PeopleBelieveWellsChildrenLongHardShowsHandsFacesLyingNightGrowsKnownVisionDarknessGrowing UpPathWillingHard WorkTomorrowAngelHotOur ChildrenWoodsIntimacyAwakeTouchedWell KnownJarsLukewarmAwake At Night
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“Lies 1: There is only the present and nothing to remember. Lies 2: Time is a straight line. Lies 3: The difference between the past and the futures is that one has happened while the other has not. Lies 4: We can only be in one place at a time. Lies 5: Any proposition that contains the word 'finite' (the world, the universe, experience, ourselves...) Lies 6: Reality as something which can be agreed upon. Lies 7: Reality is truth.”

WorldRealityPastRememberLyingUniverseDifferencesLinesHappenedPropositionsFiniteStraight Lines
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“You said, 'I'm going to leave him because my love for you makes any other life a lie.' I've hidden these words in the lining of my coat. I take them out like a jewel thief when no-one's watching. They haven't faded. Nothing about you has faded. You are still the colour of my blood. You are my blood. When I look in the mirror it's not my own face I see. Your body is twice. Once you once me. Can I be sure which is which?”

LooksSaidStillsBodyFacesLyingMy OwnBloodHavensMirrorsYour BodyColourThievesCoatsJewelsFadedMy Love For You
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“I like the way the morning can be stormy and the afternoon clear and sparkly as a jewel in the water. Put your hand in the water to reach for a sea urchin or a sea shell, and the thing desired never quite lies where you had lined it up to be. The same is true of love. In prospect or contemplation, love is where it seems to be. Reach in to lift it out and your hand misses”

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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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“Lie beside me. Let me see the division of your pores. Let me see the web of scars made by your family's claws and you their furniture. Let me see the wounds that they denied. The battle ground of family life that has been your body. Let me see the bruised red lines that signal their encampment. Let me see the routed place where they are gone. Lie beside me and let the seeing be healing. No need to hide. No need for either darkness or light. Let me see you as you are.”

NeedsHas BeensMadeBodyLightLyingLinesHealingDarknessGoneSeeingBattleRedLet MeYour BodyWoundsDivisionScarDeniedSignalsFurnitureFamily LifeClawsBruisedRed LinesEncampment
Book:Art & Lies: A Piece for Three Voices and a Bawd
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“...to live differently, to love differently, to think differently, or to try to. Is the danger of beauty so great that it is better to live without it (the standard model)? Or to fall into her arms fire to fire? There is no discovery without risk and what you risk reveals what you value. Inside the horror of Nagasaki and Hiroshima lies the beauty of Einstein's E=MC squared”

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Author:Jeanette Winterson
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