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Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson Quotes

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Famous Jeanette Winterson Quotes

“Naked I came into the world, but brush strokes cover me, language raises me, music rhythms me. Art is my rod and staff, my resting place and shield, and not mine only, for art leaves nobody out. Even those from whom art has been stolen away by tyranny, by poverty, begin to make it again. If the arts did not exist, at every moment, someone would begin to create them, in song, out of dust and mud, and although the artifacts might be destroyed, the energy that creates them is not destroyed.”

IfsWorldHas BeensArtMomentsMightSongEnergyLanguagePovertyMinesArt IsRaisesTyrannyNakedDestroyedRhythmDustStaffStrokesBrushesMudStolenShieldsArtifactsBrush Strokes
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“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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“One of the problems with watching TV is that you've got a fairly low level of language operating all the time. Quite a small vocabulary and really no conceptual or abstract thinking. That's an issue. If you've got a wide vocabulary, you can learn. The complexities of grammar, in themselves, force you to think about time in a particular way. Force you to widen your outlook on the world.”

IfsThinkingWorldWayProblemLanguageForceLevelsIssuesParticularTvsLowsWideAbstractComplexityVocabularyOutlookGrammarWatching TvLow LevelAbstract Thinking
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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“And when I look at a history book and think of the imaginative effort it has taken to squeeze this oozing world between two boards and typeset, I am astonished. Perhaps the event has an unassailable truth. God saw it. God knows. But I am not God. And so when someone tells me what they heard or saw, I believe them, and I believe their friend who also saw, but not in the same way, and I can put these accounts together and I will not have a seamless wonder but a sandwich laced with mustard of my own.”

ThinkingKnowsWorldWayBelieveLooksI CanTwoBookTogetherI BelieveMy OwnEffortWonderTakenSawsHeardEventsAccountsBoardsImaginativeGod KnowsSandwichesHistory BooksMustardSeamless
Book:Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
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“Do you wake up as I do, having forgotten what it is that hurts or where, until you move? There is a second of consciousness that is clean again. A second that is you, without memory or experience, the animal warm and waking into a brand new world. There is the sun dissolving the dark, and light as clear as music, filling the room where you sleep and the other rooms behind your eyes.”

WorldLightEyeMovingHurtMemoriesDarkSleepAnimalRoomsBehindsConsciousnessSunClearWake UpCleanForgottenWarmBrandsWakingNew WorldFillingBrand NewDissolving
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“I have set off and found that there is no end to even the simplest journey of the mind. I begin, and straight away a hundred alternative routes present themselves. I choose one, no sooner begin, than a hundred more appear. Every time I try to narrow down my intent I expand it, and yet those straits and canals still lead me to the open sea, and then I realize how vast it all is, this matter of the mind. I am confounded by the shining water and the size of the world.”

WorldTryingMindStillsEndsMatterFoundWaterRealizingJourneySeaHundredShiningSizeAlternativesRoutesSimplestLeading MeCanals
Book:Sexing the Cherry
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“What it means to be human is to bring up your children in safety, educate them, keep them healthy, teach them how to care for themselves and others, allow them to develop in their own way among adults who are sane and responsibile, who know the value of the world and not its economic potential. It means art, it means time, it means all the invisibles never counted by the GDP and the census figures. It means knowing that life has an inside as well as an outside. And I think it means love.”

ThinkingKnowsWorldWayHumansWellsMeanChildrenArtCareValuesTeachKnowingEconomicFiguresHealthyAdultsSafetyYour ChildrenEducateSaneGdpCensusWhat It Means To Be HumanMean Love
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“live in the space between chaos and shape. I walk the line that continually threatens to lose its tautness under me, dropping me into the dark pit where there is no meaning. At other times the line is so wired that it lights up the soles of my feet, gradually my whole body, until I am my own beacon, and I see then the beauty of newly created worlds, a form that is not random. A new beginning.”

WorldWholeBodyLightFormLosesLinesDarkMy OwnSpaceWalksFeetShapesChaosNew BeginningsPitsDroppingLight UpSpace BetweenBeacons
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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“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
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“While I can’t have you, I long for you. I am the kind of person who would miss a train or a plane to meet you for coffee. I’d take a taxi across town to see you for ten minutes. I’d wait outside all night if I thought you would open the door in the morning. If you call me and say ‘Will you…’ my answer is ‘Yes’, before your sentence is out. I spin worlds where we could be together. I dream you. For me, imagination and desire are very close.”

IfsWorldLoveKindPersonsLongI CanDreamTogetherDesireNightWaitingImaginationAnswersMorningDoorsMinutesMissingTenTownsTrainSentencesCoffeePlanesCall MeAll NightTaxi
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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“Breathe in, breath out. Oxygen is carcinogenic and likely puts a limit on our life span. It would be unwise though, to try to extend life by not breathing at all. Which of us doesn't do it? Either we loll in anaerobic stupor, too afraid to fill our lungs with risky beauty, or we roll out fire like dragons, destroying the world we love. I try not to burn up my world with rage. It is so hard.”

WorldTryingHardWould BeFireOur LivesLimitsBreathsBreatheRageBreathingDragonsDestroyingOxygenLungsUnwiseLife Span
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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“i realize that the future, though invisible, has weight. We are in the gravitational pull of past and future. It takes huge energy -speed of light power- to break the gravitational pull. How many of us ever get free of our orbit? We tease ourselves with fancy notions of free will and self-help courses that direct our lives. We believe we can be our own miracles, and just a lottery win or Mr.right will make the world new.”

WorldBelieveSelfHelpingLightPastCoursesWinningEnergyRealizingBreakOur LivesSelf HelpHugeDirectWeightMiracleNotionSpeedInvisibleFancyFree WillTeaseLotteryOrbitSpeed Of LightMr Right
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?”

ThinkingWorldShouldStoriesHandsFacesSidesRichHappenedStrangeAdventureSignificantPocketsCoinsTrailsShrinksCamelsSignificant Things
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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“The Hopi, an Indian tribe, have a language as sophisticated as ours, but no tenses for past, present and future. The division does not exist. What does this say about time? Matter, that thing the most solid and the well-known, which you are holding in your hands and which makes up your body, is now known to be mostly empty space. Empty space and points of light. What does this say about the reality of the world?”

WorldWellsDoeMatterBodyHandsRealityLightPastLanguageSpaceKnownEmptyYour BodyIndianDivisionSophisticatedTribesWell KnownEmpty SpacePast PresentPast Present And FuturePoints Of LightIndian Tribes
Book:Sexing the Cherry
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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.”

WorldFirstsKindBookStoriesFeelingsCoursesReadingOur LivesMissingBabyPagesNarrativeAdoptionCurtainsArrivingMissing ItUnknown Worlds
Author:Jeanette Winterson
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