Quotes from Donna Tartt

It can never have understood why it was forced to live in such misery: bewildered by noise (as I imagine), distressed by smoke, barking dogs, cooking smells, teased by drunkards and children, tethered to fly on the shortest of chains. Yet even a child can see its dignity: thimble of bravery, all fluff and brittle bone. Not timid, not even hopeless, but steady and holding its place. Refusing to pull back from the world.

The stray chance that might, or might not, change everything.

But it was also a bit like a failed artist working as a security officer at an art gallery, or a failed author working in a bookshop. There's a constant reminder of how close you are to the thing you want, and how far away from it you are.

THE NIGHT WAS A dreamlike mangle of past and present: a childhood world miraculously intact in some respects, grievously altered in others, as if the Ghost of Christmas Past and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come had joined to host the evening.

And now here she was again, like an apparition, drinking red wine from a plastic cup and calling me by name.

You never know. Because—" brow furrowed, tapping out a bit of soft black powder on his palette—"I never dreamed that all that old furniture of Mrs. De Peyster's would be the thing that decided my future.

Well, if you wake up intending to murder someone at two o'clock, you hardly think what you're going to feed the corpse for dinner.

The months subsequent were an endless dreary battle of paperwork, full of stalemates, fought in trenches.

People have used these books for centuries. Their accuracy is beyond dispute." "Well, I have as much respect for ancient learning as you do, but I don't know that I'd want to stake my life on some home remedy from the Middle Ages." "Well, I suppose I can check it somewhere else," he said, without much conviction.

Hot thunder of whisper against my cheek.

Manche Dinge sind so schrecklich, dass man sie nicht sogleich begreifen kann.

DOES SUCH a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.

I wish you smoked. I don't know why you don't. You weren't an athlete in high school or anything, were you?" "No." "That's why Bun doesn't smoke. Some clean-living type of football

Once, to my delight, I even saw him wearing pince-nez. (Later, I discovered that they weren't real prince-nez, but only had glass in them, and that his eyes were a good deal sharper than my own.)

she really was older, not the glancing-eyed girl I had fallen in love with but no less beautiful for that; beautiful now in a way that less excited my senses that tore at my very heart

What if the pattern is pre-set? No no – hang on

There had been a trapped thought about to emerge, something essential and unspeakable, released by the mention of those blank-faced soldiers. Now it was all gone but the image: dead boys with limbs akimbo, staring into the sky.

how can I see so clearly that everything I love or care about is illusion, and yet -- for me, anyway -- all that's worth living for lies in that charm?

No siempre se saca el bien de las buenas obras ni el mal de las malas obras. Ni siquiera los sabios y los buenos pueden ver la finalidad de todas sus acciones.

Nos miramos durante un largo y extraño momento que nunca he olvidado, como dos animales que se encuentran al atardecer, y de sus ojos pareció brotar una clara chispa de simpatía; vi la criatura que era en realidad y creo que él también me vio. Por un instante estuvimos conectados como dos motores del mismo circuito.

it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?

I've never met anyone who made me feel loved the way she did. Everything came alive in her company; she cast a charmed theatrical light about her so that to see anything through her eyes was to see it in brighter colors than ordinary—

sky darkened rapidly, darker every second; the wind rustled the trees in the park and the new leaves on the trees stood out tender and yellow against black clouds.

A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.