Quotessence
Home / Authors / Jeanette Winterson
Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsLiteratureThinkingWorldWayPeopleLoveBookKnowsWantStoriesHeartPastBodyWritingLifePassionHandsLanguageLying

Famous Jeanette Winterson Quotes

“If you don't educate people well, then you're going to have a lot of violent, angry young men and women. You can go around saying they're all so violent, just throw them in jail, this is an underclass, what can you do? You can create fear. The issue of violence is very suitable for a repressive society. Then you can have more legislation, more police, more laws to fight crime, when all you need to do is to encourage people in a different way.”

PeopleIfsMenWayNeedsWellsDifferentLawYoungFightingIssuesViolenceCrimeMen And WomenPoliceAngryViolentDifferent WaysYoung ManJailEducateLegislationSuitable
Author:Jeanette Winterson
Create image

“There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other's names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on the wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name.”

PeopleKnowsMeanWholeHomeTogetherFormNightNamesProcessDifficultKnowingConcernEssenceAffectionWhole LifeConsumingLife TogetherTime ConsumingLove And AffectionForms Of LoveWild NightsKnowing Each Other
Book:Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Create image

“For my part, I think we need more emotion, not less. But I think, too, that we need to educate people in how to feel. Emotionalism is not the same as emotion. We cannot cut out emotion - in the economy of the human body, it is the limbic, not the neural, highway that takes precedence. We are not robots...but we act as though all our problems would be solved if only we had no emotions to cloud our judgement.”

PeopleIfsThinkingNeedsFeelsHumansProblemBodyWould BeEmotionEconomyCuttingCloudsJudgementEducateRobotsHighwaysHuman BodyPrecedence
Author:Jeanette Winterson
Create image

“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
Create image

“In a vacuum all photons travel at the same speed. They slow down when travelling through air or water or glass. Photons of different energies are slowed down at different rates. If Tolstoy had known this, would he have recognised the terrible untruth at the beginning of Anna Karenina? 'All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own particular way.' In fact it's the other way around. Happiness is a specific. Misery is a generalisation. People usually know exactly why they are happy. They very rarely know why they are miserable.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWayDifferentFactsEnergyWaterKnownAirParticularTerribleMiseryRateGlassesSpeedUnhappyMiserableSlow DownVacuumsAnnaUntruthHappy FamilyPhotonsUnhappy FamilyGeneralisation
Author:Jeanette Winterson
Create image

“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
Create image

“Everyone who tells a story tells it differently, just to remind us that everybody sees it differently. Some people say there are true things to be found, some people say all kinds of things can be proved. I don't believe them. The only thing for certain is how complicated it all is, like string full of knots. It's all there but hard to find the beginning and impossible to fathom the end. The best you can do is admire the cat's cradle, and maybe knot it up a bit more.”

PeopleBelieveKindEndsHardStoriesCertainFoundBitsCan DoImpossibleCatDon't BelieveComplicatedAdmireAll KindsStringsCradleKnotsFathomTrue Things
Book:Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Create image

“Now that physics is proving the intelligence of the universe what are we to do about the stupidity of mankind? I include myself. I know that the earth is not flat but my feet are. I know that space is curved but my brain has been condoned by habit to grow in a straight line. What I call light is my own blend of darkness. What I call a view is my hand-painted trompe-l'oeil. I run after knowledge like a ferret down a ferret hole. My limitations, I call the boundaries of what can be known. I interpret the world by confusing other people's psychology with my own.”

PeopleKnowsWorldHas BeensHandsLightRunningEarthUniverseGrowsLinesMy OwnSpaceViewsBrainKnownDarknessPsychologyFeetMankindHabitProveStupidityPhysicsBoundariesHolesLimitationFlatsConfusingStraight LinesFerrets
Author:Jeanette Winterson
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“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
Create image

“One thing I am certain of, I do not want to be betrayed, but thats quite hard to say casually, at the beginning of a relationship. It’s not a word people use very often, which confuses me, because there are different kinds of infidelity, but betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it. By betrayal, I mean promising to be on your side, and then being on somebody else’s.”

PeopleWantKindMeanDifferentHardUseCertainSidesOne ThingBetrayalDifferent KindsInfidelityBetrayedYour SideBeginning Of Relationship
Book:Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Create image