Quotes from Donna Tartt

I was fairly sure this death had affected him more than he let show. Then again, I suspect that Julian's cheery, Socratic indifference to matters of life and death kept him from feeling too sad about anything for very long.

I see you are philosopher by nature.

The idea of losing control is one that fascinates controlled people such as ourselves more than anything.

Chaotic room-service trays; too many cigarettes; lukewarm vodka from duty free. During those restless, shut-up days, I got to know every inch of the room as a prisoner comes to know his cell.

a terrible place, a cursed place," he said dreamily

Andy's mother, with her understated jewelry and her not-quite-interested smile – the kind of woman who could get on the phone with the mayor if she needed a favor – seemed

La idea de un asesinato, fuera cual fuera, me habría dejado estupefacto. Pero aquel domingo por la tarde, mientras presenciaba uno, me pareció la cosa más fácil del mundo.

What if you had never seen the sea before? What if the only thing you'd ever seen was a child's picture - blue crayon, choppy waves? Would you know the real sea if you only knew the picture? Would you be able to recognize the real thing even if you saw it?

Well, I've already got ten thousand set aside. That's a good start. If you think about it when we get home, give me your Social and next time I drop by the bank, I'll open an account in your name, okay?

Besides, I think it's good to change the place where one sleeps from time to time. I believe it gives one more interesting dreams.

Hay cosas tan terribles que no podemos entenderlas inmediatamente. Y hay cosas —desnudas, farfullantes, indelebles tan horrorosas— demasiado terribles para que lleguemos a entenderlas jamás. Sólo más adelante, en la soledad, en la memoria, nos damos cuenta: cuando las cenizas se han enfriado, cuando ya se han marchado los dolientes; cuando miras a tu alrededor y te encuentras, para tu sorpresa, en un mundo completamente diferente.

Percebi que me imaginara, durante anos, em outro local mas que, na realidade, permaneci lá o tempo inteiro

for a few delirious moments I wondered if I was dead.

Y en nuestro agonizar, [...] es un honor y un privilegio amar lo que la muerte no puede alcanzar.

Struggling against his weight, reeling backward, I knocked the fishbowl from its pedestal and it crashed to the floor. Goldfish flopping all around my feet, amidst the shards of broken glass. Someone banged on the door. In my terror I let go of the body and it fell back into the tub with a hideous slap and a spray of water and I woke up.

x. IT WAS EIGHT-THIRTY IN the morning by the time I got to storage, with a sore jaw from grinding

Well, a change of scenery may be good for you, said Hobie when I went down to see him before I left. Even if the scene isn't what you'd choose.

Our large age difference made us shy with each other; there was a formality, a generational reserve;

People die, sure . . . but it's heartbreaking and unnecessary how we lose things. From pure carelessness.

what mattered most, as I came to realize, was who'd lived in Vegas the longest, which was why the knock-down Mexican beauties and itinerant construction heirs sat alone at lunch while the bland, middling children of local realtors and car dealers were the cheerleaders and class presidents, the unchallenged elite of the school.

I saw this at about three o'clock in the morning, alone in my apartment, on a black-and-white set with lots of interference. White noise and snow. He seemed to be speaking directly at me, right out of the television set. For a moment I was disoriented, seized by panic; could a ghost embody itself through wavelengths, electronic dots, a picture tube? What are the dead, anyway, but waves and energy? Light shining from a dead star?

liked the thought of traffic and crowds, of working in a bookstore, waiting tables in a coffee shop, who knew what kind of odd, solitary life I might slip into? Meals alone, walking the dogs in the evenings; and nobody knowing who I was.

emissary from the realm of angels, rapt and consumed by the sublime!

If you can't plan it in advance, you have to see how it goes as you do it