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Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson Quotes

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Famous Jeanette Winterson Quotes

“Why should literature be easy? Sometimes you can do what you want to do in a simple, direct way that is absolutely right. Sometimes you can't. Reading is not a passive act. Books are not TV. Art of all kinds is an interactive challenge. The person who makes the work and the person who comes to the work both have a job to do. I am never wilfully obscure, but I do ask for some effort.”

WayWantShouldKindPersonsArtBookSometimesJobsReadingAsksLiteratureEasyCan DoChallengesSimpleEffortTvsDirectWhat You WantAll KindsPassiveObscureInteractive
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“When my husband had an affair with someone else I watched his eyes glaze over when we ate dinner together and I heard him singing to himself without me, and when he tended the garden it was not for me. He was courteous and polite; he enjoyed being at home, but in the fantasy of his home I was not the one who sat opposite him and laughed at his jokes. He didn't want to change anything; he liked his life. The only thing he wanted to change was me.”

WantHomeEyeWantedTogetherFantasyHeardHusbandSingingJokesGardenOppositesAffairDinnerEnjoyedSatHis EyesMy HusbandLaughedPoliteAdulteryCourteous
Book:Sexing the Cherry
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“reading is not a passive act. It's a creative act. It's a relationship between the writer and a person the writer will probably never meet. I think it's very wrong to write in a way that leaves no room for the reader to maneuver. I don't want to get in the way. What I'd really like to do is to perform the Indian Rope Trick - go higher and higher and eventually disappear.”

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Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“At bed-time I went into my room and put out the light. I didn't get undressed. I lay on my bed and looked out of the window at the stars. I read in a book that the stars can take you anywhere. I've never wanted to be an astronaut because of the helmets. If I were up there on the moon, or by the Milky Way, I'd want to feel the stars round my head. I'd want them in my hair the way they are in paintings of the gods. I'd want my whole body to feel the space, the empty space and points of light. That's how dancers must feel, dancers and acrobats, just for a second, that freedom.”

IfsWayWantFeelsBookWholeBodyLightWantedStarsSpaceRoomsPaintingHairBedMoonWindowEmptyLaysRoundsDancerAstronautHelmetEmpty SpaceMilky WayPoints Of LightBed Time
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“For me, the most painful thing is the thought of shelves without books. This is the problem with the digital thing. I do not want to see it on electronic. I do not want to see all of those indices on Kindle. I don't want this physical object to disappear, because when it's there and it's present, it's continually suggesting new relationships in a way that an electronic index couldn't.”

WayWantBookProblemObjectsPainfulDisappearDigitalShelvesSuggestingKindlesNew RelationshipPainful Things
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“The unknownness of my needs frightens me. I do now know how huge they are, or how high they are, I only know that they are not being met. If you want to find out the circumference of an oil drop, you can use lycopodium powder. That’s what I’ll find. A tub of lycopodium powder, and I will sprinkle it on to my needs and find out how large they are. Then when I meet someone I can write up the experiment and show them what they have to take on.”

IfsKnowsWantNeedsWritingI CanUseShowsKnow HowHugeMetsOilExperimentsPowderTubsSprinkles
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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“Yes, we are [friends] and I do like to pass the day with you in serious and inconsequential chatter. I wouldn't mind washing up beside you, dusting beside you, reading the back half of the paper while you read the front. We are friends and I would miss you, do miss you and think of you very often. I don't want to lose this happy space where I have found someone who is smart and easy and doesn't bother to check their diary when we arrange to meet.”

ThinkingWantMindReadingFoundEasyFriendshipLosesSpaceHalfMissingFrontsSeriousPaperSmartMy FriendsChecksBotherMy Best FriendDiariesWashingThink Of YouMy FriendshipYour Best FriendAbout FriendshipNew FriendsFriendship MemoriesOne Line FriendshipChatterBest FriendshipInconsequentialBeside YouNew FriendshipBeing A Good FriendWho Your Friends AreFound Someone
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“Louise, I would gladly fire the past for you, go and not look back. I have been reckless before, never counting the cost, oblivious to the cost. Now, I've done the sums ahead. I know what it will mean to redeem myself from the accumulations of a lifetime. I know and I don't care. You set before me a space uncluttered by association. It might be a void or it might be a release. Certainly I want to take the risk. I want to take the risk because the life I have stored up is going mouldy.”

KnowsWantLooksMeanHas BeensDoneMightCarePastSpaceFireRiskCostLifetimeDon't CareReleaseI Don't CareAssociationVoidRecklessCountingAccumulationObliviousCounting The Cost
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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“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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“I didn't want to be in the teeming mass of the working class.[...] I didn't want to live and die in the same place with only a week at the seaside in between. I dreamed of escape - but what is terrible about industrialisation is that it makes escape necessary. In a system that generates masses, individualism is the only way out. But then what happens to community - to society?”

WayWantHappensDiesCommunityClassWeekTerribleMassIndividualismWorking Class
Book:Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
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“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
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“The secret of the world is this: the world is entirely circular and you will go round and round endlessly, never finding what you want, unless you have found what you really want inside yourself. When you follow a star you know you will never reach that star; rather it will guide you to where you want to go. Its a reference point, not an end in itself, even though you seem to be following it. So it is with the world. It will only ever lead you back to yourself. The end of all your exploring will be to cease from exploration and know the place for the first time.”

KnowsWorldWantLoveFirstsEndsSeemsTimeFoundStarsSecretFindingsFirst TimeRoundsFollowingGuidesWhat You WantCeaseExplorationExploringWant UTime Love
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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