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Jeanette Winterson Quotes - Page 11

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The mind will not believe in death, perhaps because, as far as the mind is concerned, death never happens.

The mind will not believe in death, perhaps because, as far as the mind is concerned, death never happens.

Jeanette Winterson
Death, Believe, Mind
Jeanette Winterson (2013). “The Stone Gods”, p.81, Penguin UK

I have a list of titles that I leave at the [library] desk, because they are bound to be written some day, and it's best to be ahead of the queue.

Jeanette Winterson
Library, Titles, Lists
Jeanette Winterson (2006). “Lighthousekeeping”, p.153, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The fact is that every atom that we're made of is part of that first explosion of a nuclear star billions of years ago. We're connected to the entire universe.

Jeanette Winterson
Stars, Years, Atoms
Source: www.raintaxi.com

You've got these twenty million people who call themselves the Evangelical Christians who will put their hand up and say, I believe in the devil, I'm against abortion and gay rights, and we have to blow up the world. It's frightening.

Jeanette Winterson
Christian, Believe, Gay
Source: www.raintaxi.com

Life…we understand it differently at different stages. It’s what is interesting about getting older, you realize your relationship with the past is always negotiable. There is a lot of freedom in that, because you realize you can go back to what you did such a long time ago. You can talk with the dead, talk with your lost self, your disappeared self, and you can visit those places again, and understand it differently. That makes a huge difference.

Jeanette Winterson
Past, Self, Differences

Thinking about time is to acknowledge two contradictory certainties: that our outward lives are governed by the seasons and the clock; that our inward lives are governed by something much less regular-an imaginative impulse cutting through the dictates of daily time, and leaving us free to ignore the boundaries of here and now and pass like lightning along the coil of pure time, that is, the circle of the universe and whatever it does or does not contain.

Jeanette Winterson
Cutting, Thinking, Circles
Jeanette Winterson (1991). “Sexing the Cherry”, Vintage

There's a whole generation growing up thinking you shouldn't seek knowledge for its own sake, and that theatre and art and books are activities that you do after-hours, rather than things that are at the heart of life. That's a huge change.

Jeanette Winterson
Art, Growing Up, Book
Source: www.newstatesman.com

I don't own my emotions unless I can think about them. I am not afraid of feeling but I am afraid of feeling unthinkingly. I don't want to drown. My head is my heart's lifebelt.

Jeanette Winterson
Heart, Thinking, Feelings

I wanted to invent myself as a fictional character. And I did, and it has caused a great deal of confusion.

Jeanette Winterson
Character, Confusion, Literature

The probability of separate worlds meeting is very small. The lure of it is immense. We send starships. We fall in love.

Jeanette Winterson
Falling In Love, World, Probability

It may be that you are settled in another place it may be that you are happy but the one who took your heart wields final power.

Jeanette Winterson
Heart, Finals, May
Jeanette Winterson (2011). “The Passion”, p.145, Random House

We [fiction writers] are much more of a maze than we are a motorway. Things are always in flux, they're always in movement, they're always twisting back on each other. I think the straight line is such a lie.

Jeanette Winterson
Lying, Thinking, Mazes
Source: www.raintaxi.com

Part fact part fiction is what life is. And it is always a cover story. I wrote my way out.

Jeanette Winterson
Writing, Fiction, Stories
"Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?". Book by Jeanette Winterson, www.abc.net.au. 2011.

Seeing one's books on the shelf tells you so much about the way somebody has, over the years, put together their private library, which is a reflection of their minds and their selves.

Jeanette Winterson
Book, Reflection, Self
Source: americanlibrariesmagazine.org

Time is a player. Time is part of today, not simply a measure of its passing.

Jeanette Winterson
Player, Today, Passing

I drove to Oxford with my van full of petrol and tin cans, as I didn't know there were service stations on the motorway. I pulled up on the hard shoulder and got my cans out. Then I filled up and set off again. That's how naive I was - so much not a cosmopolitan girl.

Jeanette Winterson
Girl, Oxford, Filled Up
Source: www.newstatesman.com

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.

Jeanette Winterson
Fire, Dragons, Oxygen

I never wanted children. If I'd been deeply in love with a man and he'd wanted children, it would have been difficult.

Jeanette Winterson
Love, Children, Men

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.

Jeanette Winterson
Stars, Wall, Moon

Life has never been All or Nothing- it's All and Nothing. Forget the binaries.

Jeanette Winterson
Forget

Know thyself,’ said Socrates. Know thyself,’ said Sappho, ‘and make sure that the Church never finds out.

Jeanette Winterson
Church, Know Thyself, Said
Jeanette Winterson (1995). “Art & Lies: A Piece for Three Voices and a Bawd”, Knopf

What to say? That the end of love is a haunting. A haunting of dreams. A haunting of silence. Haunted by ghosts it is easy to become a ghost. Life ebbs. The pulse is too faint. Nothing stirs you. Some people approve of this and call it healing. It is not healing. A dead body feels no pain.

Jeanette Winterson
Dream, Pain, Healing
"The Powerbook". Book by Jeanette Winterson, 2000.

We are lucky, even the worst of us, for daylight comes.

Jeanette Winterson
Lucky, Daylight, Worst

I know from my own experience that suicide is not what it seems. Too easy to try to piece together the fragmented life. The spirit torn in bits so that the body follows.

Jeanette Winterson
Suicide, Trying, Together
Jeanette Winterson (1995). “Art & Lies: A Piece for Three Voices and a Bawd”, Knopf

Always in my books, I like to throw that rogue element into a stable situation and then see what happens.

Jeanette Winterson
Book, Elements, Literature

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