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Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson Quotes

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Famous Jeanette Winterson Quotes

“Much of what I have done is left unfinished- not because I left it too soon, not because I was lazy, but because it had a life of it's own that continues without me. Children, I suppose, are always unfinished business: they begin as part of your own body, and continue as seperate as another continent. The work you do, if it has any meaning, passes to other hands. The day slides into a night's dreaming. True stories are the ones that lie open at the border, allowing a crossing, a further frontier. The final frontier is just science fiction -don't believe it. Like the universe, there is no end. (p.87)”

StoriesChildern
Book:The Stone Gods
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“Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like Braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, or tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book.”

KnowsFeelsBookWholeStoriesBodyHandsLightEyeCertainReadingSecretToo MuchWrittenLettersLifetimeCodeVisibleAccumulationBraillePalimpsest
Book:Written On The Body
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“Tell me the story, Pew. . . . It was a woman. You always say that. There's always a woman somewhere, child; a princess, a witch, a stepmother, a mermaid, a fairy godmother, or one as wicked as she is beautiful, or as beautiful as she is good. Is that the complete list? Then there is the woman you love. Who's she? That's another story.”

ChildrenStoriesBeautifulWomenBeautyListsFairyWickedWitchPrincessMermaidGodmotherStepmothersFairy GodmotherShe Is Beautiful
Book:Lighthousekeeping
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“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
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“It's only a story, you say. So it is, and the rest of life with it - creation story, love story, horror, crime, the strange story of you and I. The alphabet of my DNA shapes certain words, but the story is not told. I have to tell it myself. What is it that I have to tell myself again and again? That there is always a new beginning, a different end. I can change the story. I am the story. Begin.”

I CanDifferentEndsStoriesCertainCrimeCreationStrangeHorrorShapesLove StoryAgain And AgainDnaNew BeginningsAlphabetRest Of LifeCreation StoriesStrange Stories
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“I cannot assume you will understand me. It is just as likely that as I invent what I want to say, you will invent what you want to hear. Some story we must have. Stray words on crumpled paper. A weak signal into the outer space of each other. The probability of seperate worlds meeting is very small. The lure is immense. We send starships. We fall in love”

WorldWantStoriesFallSpacePaperWeakAssumingMeetingsFalling In LoveWhat You WantImmenseProbabilitySignalsLureOuter SpaceUnderstand Me
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“Don't you think it's strange that life, described as so rich and full, a camel-trail of adventure, should shrink to this coin-sized world? A head on one side, a story on the other. Someone you loved and what happened. That's all there is when you dig in your pockets. The most significant thing is someone else's face. What else is embossed on your hands but her?”

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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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“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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“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.”

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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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“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.”

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Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“Words like passion and ecstasy, we learn them but they stay flat on the page. Sometimes we try to turn them over, find out what's on the other side, and everyone has a story to tell os a woman or a brothel or an opium night or a war. We fear it. We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much.”

LoveTryingWarSometimesStoriesAgeNightTurnsPassionSidesLaughingToo MuchPagesFlatsEcstasyOpiumMuch LoveBrothelsEveryone Has A Story
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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