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Donna Tartt Quotes

Browse 46 quotes about Donna Tartt.

Donna Tartt Quotes

“I am gifted at blending myself into any given milieu—you've never seen such a typical California teenager as I was, nor such a dissolute and callous pre-med student—but somehow despite my efforts, I am never able to blend myself in entirely and remain in some respects quite distinct from my surroundings, in the same way that a green chameleon remains a distinct entity from the leaf upon which it sits, no matter how perfectly it has approximated the the subtleties of the particular shade.”

SimileChameleonThe Secret HistoryDonna TarttImpostor
Book:The Secret History
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“Sunday was a sad day-early to bed, school the next morning, I was constantly worried my homework was wrong-but as I watched the fireworks go off in the night sky, over the floodlit castles of Disneyland, was consumed by a more general sense of dread, of imprisonment I within the dreary round of school and home: circumstances which, to me at least, presented sound empirical argument for gloom. My father was mean, and our house ugly, and my mother didn't pay much attention to me; my clothes were cheap and my haircut too short and no one at school seemed to like me that much; and since all this had been true for as long as I could remember, I felt things would doubtless continue in this depressing vein as far as I could foresee. In short: I felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way.”

SchoolSundayDreadDepressingConsumedNo FriendsThe Secret HistoryDonna TarttLack Of Attention
Book:The Secret History
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“«Perché quella piccola voce ostinata nella nostra testa ci tormenta così?» disse , guardandoci. «Forse perché ci ricorda che siamo vivi, che siamo mortali, che abbiamo anime autonome - che, dopotutto, siamo troppo pavidi per cedere, ma che pure ci procurano un grave malessere? È una cosa terribile imparare da bambini che si è un essere separato dal resto del mondo, che niente e nessuno soffre i nostri medesimi solori di scottature alla lingua o di sbucciature alle ginocchia: che ognuno è solo con i propri acciacchi e le proprie pene, Ancor più terribile, invecchiando, scoprire che nessuna persona - non importa quanto vicina - potrà mai capirci davvero. I nostri io sono ciò che ci rende più infelici, ed è per questo che bramiamo perderli, non credere?»”

PhilosophyHuman NatureTragedyPhilosophy Of LifeGreekPhilosophy QuotesThe Secret HistoryDonna TarttDio Di Illusioni
Book:The Secret History
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“Out in the country it was not uncommon to discover that she had slipped away, alone, out to the lake, maybe, or down to the cellar, where once I found her sitting in the big marooned sleigh, reading, her fur coat thrown over her knees. Things would have been terrible strange and unbalanced without her. She was the Queen who finished out the suit of dark Jacks, dark King, and Joker.”

QueenThe Secret HistoryDonna Tartt
Book:The Secret History
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“Occasionally a car swooshed by in the rain and its headlights would swing round momentarily and illuminate the room-the pool table, snowshoes on the wall and the rowing machine, the armchair in which Henry sat, motionless, a glass in his hand and the cigarette burning low between his fingers. For a moment his face, pale and watchful as a ghost's, would be caught in the headlights and then, very gradually, it would slide back into the dark.”

Literature QuotesThe Secret HistoryDonna Tartt
Book:The Secret History
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“Lo so, lo so, ma ascoltami. Hai letto L’idiota, vero? Sì. Beh, L’idiota è un libro molto inquietante per me. Mi ha fatto così effetto che dopo non ho quasi più letto romanzi, a parte roba tipo ‘Uomini che odiano le donne’. Perché… provavo a intromettermi, …be’, magari me lo dici dopo, a cosa pensavi, lasciami finire di dirti perché l’ho trovato inquietante. Perché tutto quello che Myškin fa è buono… altruista… tratta tutti con compassione e comprensione e a cosa porta tutta quella bontà? Omicidi! Disastri! Una volta mi preoccupavo un sacco di questa cosa. Me ne stavo sveglio a letto di notte e mi preoccupavo! Perché – perché? Com'era possibile? Ho letto quel libro tre volte, pensando di non averlo capito. Myškin era gentile, amava la gente, era tenero, perdonava sempre, non faceva mai niente di sbagliato – ma si fidava di tutte le persone sbagliate, prendeva solo decisioni sbagliate, faceva soffrire tutti quelli che gli stavano intorno. Quel libro contiene un messaggio oscuro. “A che pro essere buoni?” Ma – questo è ciò che ho capito ieri notte, mentre guidavo. E se… se fosse più complicato di così? Se fosse vero anche il contrario? Perché se è vero che il male può discendere dalle buone azioni… dove sta scritto che da quelle cattive può venire solo il male? Magari a volte – il modo sbagliato è quello giusto? Magari prendi la strada sbagliata e ti porta comunque dove volevi? O vedila in un altro modo, certe volte puoi sbagliare tutto, e alla fine viene fuori che andava bene?”

Donna TarttThe GoldfinchIl Cardellino
Book:The Goldfinch
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“Argentina. The word itself had lost little of its power to startle and had, due to my ignorance of the physical place it occupied on the globe, assumed a peculiar life of its own. There was the harsh Ar at the beginning, which called up gold, idols, lost cities in the jungle, which in turn led to the hushed and sinister chamber of Gen, with the bright, interrogative Tina at the end—all nonsense, of course, but then it seemed in some muddled way that name itself, one of the few concrete facts available to me, might itself be a cryptogram or clue.”

ArgentinaWordplayWhimsicalDonna TarttThe Secret Place
Book:The Secret History
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“Rise. «I grandi quadri – la gente accorre per vederli, attirano folle, sono riprodotti all’infinito sulle tazze e sui tappetini dei mouse e su qualunque cosa. E, questo riguarda anche me, puoi passare una vita intera a visitare musei con grande piacere, un bel giretto, e poi via, a pranzo da qualche parte. Ma…» tornò a sedersi sul tavolo, «se un quadro ti affonda davvero nel cuore e cambia il tuo modo di vedere, e di pensare, e di provare emozioni, non pensi, “oh, amo questo quadro perché è universale”, “amo questo quadro perché parla a tutto il genere umano”. Non è questa la ragione per cui ci si innamora di un’opera d’arte. È un sospiro segreto in un vicolo. Pss, tu. Ehi ragazzino. Sì, proprio tu.»”

Donna TarttThe GoldfinchIl Cardellino
Author:Donna Tartt
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“It is a terrible thing to learn as a child that one is a being separate from all the world, that no one and no thing hurts along with one's burned tongues and skinned knees, that one's aches and pains are all one's own. Even more terrible, as we grow older, to learn that no person, no matter how beloved, can ever truly understand us. Our own selves make us most unhappy, and that's why we're so anxious to lose them...”

Donna Tartt
Book:The Secret History
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“But walking through it all was one thing; walking away, unfortunately, has proved to be quite another, and though once I thought I had left that ravine forever on an April afternoon long ago, now I am not so sure. Now the searchers have departed, and life has grown quiet around me, I have come to realize that while for years I might have imagined myself to be somewhere else, in reality I have been there all the time: up at the top by the muddy wheel-ruts in the new grass, where the sky is dark over the shivering apple blossoms and the first chill of the snow that will fall that night is already in the air.”

MemoryTrappedBeginningHauntedPrologueThe Secret HistoryDonna Tartt
Book:The Secret History
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“Though not untidy, exactly, it verged on being so. Books were stacked on every available surface; the tables were cluttered papers, ashtrays, bottles of whiskey, boxes of chocolates; umbrellas and galoshes made passage difficult in the narrow hall… Camilla’s night table was littered with empty teacups, leaky pens, dead marigolds in a water glass, and at the foot of her bed was a half-played game of solitaire… everywhere I looked was some fresh oddity: an old stereopticon, arrowheads in a dusty glass case, a staghorn fern, a bird’s skeleton…”

Dark AcademiaThe Secret HistoryDonna Tartt
Book:The Secret History
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“We had not spoken about the incident in my room several nights before and, in the drowsy silence of the car, I felt the need to make things plain. “You know, Francis,” I said. “What?” It seemed the best thing was just to come right out and say it. “You know,” I said, “I’m really not attracted to you. I mean, not that—” “Isn’t that interesting,” he said coolly. “I’m really not attracted to you, either.” “But—” “You were there.” We drove the rest of the way to school in a not very comfortable silence.”

The Secret HistoryDonna Tartt
Author:Donna Tartt
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“Well, it's not called a mystery for nothing," said Henry sourly. "Take my word for it. But one mustn't underestimate the primal appeal to lose one's self, lose it utterly. And in losing it be born to the principle of continuous life, outside the prison of mortality and time. That was attractive to me from the first, even when I knew nothing about the topic and approached it less as potential mystes than anthropologist. Ancient commentators are very circumspect about the whole thing. It was possible, with a great deal of work, to figure out some of the sacred rituals-the hymns, the sacred objects, what to wear and do and say. More difficult was the mystery itself: how did one propel oneself into such a state, what was the catalyst?" His voice was dreamy, amused. "We tried everything. Drink, drugs, prayer, even small doses of poison.”

PlatoDionysusThe Secret HistoryDonna TarttBakcheiaDionysus FrenzyDivine Mania
Book:The Secret History
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“And I feel I have something very serious and urgent to say to you, my non-existent reader, and I feel I should say it as urgently as if I were standing in the room with you. That life—whatever else it is—is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.”

Donna TarttTheoGoldfinch
Book:The Goldfinch
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“E per quanto mi piacerebbe credere che ci sia un verità dietro l'illusione, mi sono convinto che non c'è alcuna verità dietro l'illusione. Perché, tra la "relatà" da un lato, e il punto in cui la mente va a sbattere contro la realtà, esiste uno spazio sottile, uno spicchio d'arcobaleno da cui origina la bellezza, il punto in cui due superfici molto diverse tra loro si mescolano e si confondono per procurare ciò che la vita non ci dà: e questo è lo spazio in cui tutta l'arte prende forma, e tutta la magia.”

Donna TarttThe GoldfinchModern Classic
Book:The Goldfinch
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