Quotes from Marisha Pessl

No wonder so many adults long to return to university, to all those deadlines--ahhh, that structure! Scaffolding to which we may cling! Even if it is arbitrary, without it, we're lost, wholly incapable of separating the Romantic from the Victorian in our sad, bewildering lives...

the deepest secrets about ourselves that we, in the ultimate act of humanity, will spare those we truly love.

Life was a freight train barreling toward just one stop, our loved ones streaking past our windows in blurs of color and light. There was no holding on to any of it, and no slowing it down.

I was aware now, as ever, that between all people there were First Times You See Them and Last Times you See Them.

I was aware too how strange adults were, how theirs lives were vaster than they wanted anyone to realize, that they actually stretched on and on like deserts, dry and desolate, with an unpredictable, shifting sea of dunes.

People had an illogical, self-serving rationale when it came to interpreting the behavior of others.

Dad's Theory of Arrogance--that everyone always assumes they're the Principal Character of Desire and/or Loathing in everybody else's Broadway Play.

It's hard, in America, not to equate 'happiness' with 'things'.

A deus ex machina will never appear in real life so you best make other arrangements.

It felt as if we'd been to war together. Deep in a jungle, alone, I had relied on them, these strangers. They'd held me up in ways only people could. When it was over, an ending never felt like an ending, only an exhausted draw, we went our separate ways. Be we were bonded forever by the history of it, the simple fact they'd seen the raw side of me and me of them, a side no one, not even closest friends or family had ever seen before, or probably ever would.

When you grow up--and from the look of things, you have awhile--but you learn things never go back to normal simply because everyone's sorry. Sorry is ridiculous.

Within every elaborate lie, a kernel of truth.

But when you flee someone, no matter how far you roam, that person will follow you as doggedly as the stars.

Well, life isn't a cakewalk, is it?! Eighty-nine percent of the world's most valuable art was created by men living in rat-infested flats. You think Velásquez wore Adidas? You think he enjoyed the luxuries of central heating and twenty-four-hour pizza delivery?!

Everyone smiles for a photograph.

Funnily enough, it is the subject one dreads talking about at length one ends up talking about at length, often without the slightest provocation.

There was something about her playing... a knowledge of darkness in the most extreme form.

To be next to her was to have everything.

Life does not belong to you. It is the apartment you rent. Love without fear, for love is an airplane that carries you to new lands. There is a universe in silence. A tunnel to peace in a scream. Get a good night's sleep. Laugh when you can. You are more magical than you know. Take your advice from the elderly and children. None of it as crucial as you think, but that makes it no less vital. Our lives go on, and on. Look for the breadcrumbs.

No way, man. I got one rule as a driver." "What's that?" "Never look in da rearview mirror." "Never? We drifted into the left-hand lane, cutting off a cab. "It's not healthy to keep a' watchin' what you leavin' behind.

Well, it doesn't look good. Makes me look like one of those unloved latchkey children they make after-school specials about. Don't sell yourself short. You're more Masterpiece Theatre.

Mortal fear is as crucial a thing to our lives as love. It cuts to the core of our being and shows us what we are. Will you step back and cover your eyes? Or will you have the strength to walk to the precipice and look out? Do you want to know what is there or live in the dark delusion that this commercial world insists we remain sealed inside like blind caterpillars in an eternal cocoon? Will you curl up with your eyes closed and die? Or can you fight your way out of it and fly?

But it could also be an enslavement, a hell , to keep searching for the enchanted , keep plunging down, down to the lonely chambers of the sea. To seek mermaids . It was a tragic thing to do, like looking for Eden.

We're living longer, we social network alone with our screens , and our depth of feeling gets shallower. Soon it'll be nothing but a tide pool, then a thimble of water, then a micro drop .