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Jeanette Winterson Quotes - Page 19

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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

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.

Jeanette Winterson
Believe, Winning, Past

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

Jeanette Winterson
Falling In Love, Space, Stories

The only selfish life is a timid one.

Jeanette Winterson
Selfish, Life Is

I choose this story above all others because it's a story I'm struggling to end.

Jeanette Winterson
Struggle, Stories, Ends

Unhappiness is selfish, grief is selfish. For whom are the tears?

Jeanette Winterson
Selfish, Grief, Tears

…only a poet could frame a language that could frame a world.

Jeanette Winterson
World, Language, Poet

Tell me a story, Pew. What kind of story, child? A story with a happy ending. There’s no such thing in all the world. As a happy ending? As an ending.

Jeanette Winterson
Children, Stories, World
Jeanette Winterson (2006). “Lighthousekeeping”, p.58, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Every moment you steal from the present is a moment you've lost forever. There is only now.

Jeanette Winterson
Forever, Moments, Stealing

There is no sense in loving someone you can never wake up to except by chance.

Jeanette Winterson
Loving Someone, Wake Up, Chance
Jeanette Winterson (2007). “The Passion”, p.95, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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.

Jeanette Winterson
Betrayal, Mean, Your Side
Jeanette Winterson (2007). “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit”, p.171, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

I don't know how to answer. I know what I think, but words in the head are like voices underwater. They are distorted.

Jeanette Winterson
Thinking, Voice, Underwater
Jeanette Winterson (2007). “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit”, p.161, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Trust me, I'm telling you stories.

Jeanette Winterson
Stories, Trust Me
Jeanette Winterson (2011). “The Passion”, p.40, Random House

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.

Jeanette Winterson
Art, Jobs, Book

I have no idea what happens next.

Jeanette Winterson
Ideas, Next, Happens
"Jennifer Byrne Presents", www.abc.net.au. July 31, 2012.

I didn't know what hate felt like, not the hate that comes after love. It's huge and desperate and it longs to be proved wrong. And every day it's proved right it grows a little more monstrous. If the love was passion, the hate will be obsession. A need to see the once-loved weak and cowed beneath pity. Disgust is close and dignity is far away. The hate is not only for the once loved, it's for yourself too; how could you ever have loved this?

Jeanette Winterson
Hate, Passion, Needs
"The Passion". Book by Jeanette Winterson, 1987.

Intensity is the desire to receive. Open yourself to light and you will become light.

Jeanette Winterson
Light, Desire, Intensity

I don't want to eke out my life like a resource in short supply. The only selfish life is a timid one. To hold back, to withdraw, to keep the best in reserve, both overvalues the self, and undervalues what the self is.

Jeanette Winterson
Selfish, Want, Life Is

Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights; the accumulations of a lifetime gather there

Jeanette Winterson
Light, Secret, Body
Jeanette Winterson (2011). “The Passion”, p.165, Random House

The truth is I am inventing the maybe. I can only make the choices I make, so why torture myself with what I might have done, when all I can handle is what I have done? The Maybe Islands are hostile to human life.

Jeanette Winterson
Islands, Choices, Done

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.

Jeanette Winterson
Lying, Believe, Borders

Everything is imprinted for ever with what it once was.

Jeanette Winterson
Jeanette Winterson (2017). “Love: Vintage Minis”, p.76, Random House

Life gives you enough hard knocks so it's unlikely you'll stay that sure of yourself.

Jeanette Winterson
Giving, Life Is Hard, Hard Life

I never cared about money.

Jeanette Winterson
Money

I didn't mind being unpopular at school, because everyone else was a heathen.

Jeanette Winterson
School, Mind, Literature
"Redemption songs" by Maya Jaggi, www.theguardian.com. May 28, 2004.

Strange to dream in the right shape and build in the wrong shape, but maybe that is what we do every day, never believing that a dream could tell the truth.

Jeanette Winterson
Dream, Believe, Shapes

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