Quotes from Donna Tartt

Whe can't escape who we are

It's not about outward appearances but inward significance.

Even the tiniest things mean something. Whenever you see flies or insects in a still life—a wilted petal, a black spot on the apple—the painter is giving you a secret message. He's telling you that living things don't last—it's all temporary. Death in life. That's why they're called natures mortes. Maybe you don't see it at first with all the beauty and bloom, the little speck of rot. But if you look closer—there it is.

Judy's bath salts

To try to make some meaning out of all this seems

But when she was annoyed with me, she had a cold way of saying "Apparently" in answer to almost anything I said, making me feel stupid. "Um, I can't find the can opener." "Apparently." "There's going to be a lunar eclipse tonight." "Apparently." "Look, sparks are coming out of the wall socket." "Apparently.

it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn't touch.

of huddled anonymity like old black and white photos I'd seen of bank crashes and bread lines in the 1930s.

Tiene algún sentido saber que termina mal para todos, incluso para los más felices, pues al final todos perdemos lo que importa, y saber al mismo tiempo que, pese a ello, con toda la crueldad que implica el juego, es posible jugar con una especie de alegría?

It's not about outward appearances but inward significance. A grandeur in the world, but not of the world, a grandeur that the world doesn't understand.

I think he felt the need to make a noble gesture, something to prove to us and to himself that it was in fact possible to put those high cold principles which Julian had taught us to use. Duty, piety, loyalty, sacrifice.

good-natured groom on

We think we have many desires, but in fact we have only one. What is it?" "To live," said Camilla. "To live forever''.

I'd realized that laughter was light, and that light was laughter, and that was the secret of the universe.

crazy," she'd said, "but I'd be perfectly happy if I could sit looking at the same half dozen paintings for the rest of my life. I can't think of a better way to go insane.")

Across those unbridgeable distances—between bird and painter, painting and viewer—I hear only too well what's being said to me, a psst from an alleyway as Hobie put it, across four hundred years of time, and it's really very personal and specific.

Unsettled heart. The fetishism of secrecy. These people understood—as I did—the back alleys of the soul, whispers and shadows, money slipping from hand to hand, the password, the code, the second self, all the hidden consolations that lifted life above the ordinary and made it worth living.

He looked very tired, a regard which manifested itself not in dark circles, or pallor, but a dreamy and bright-cheeked sadness.

Às vezes você tem que perder pra ganhar.

We were silent, contemplating the awfulness of this, me feeling as if I had experienced in these few words the entire weight and sweep of Kotku's life, and Boris's.

Tuve la revelación de que la risa era luz, y la luz risa, y que ese era el secreto del universo.

But how," said Charles, who was close to tears, "how can you possibly justify cold-blooded murder?" Henry lit a cigarette. "I prefer

Ninguém nunca, jamais, vai conseguir me convencer de que a vida é uma coisa incrível e gratificante. Porque, esta é a verdade: a vida é catástrofe.

Y eso es lo que hacen todos los grandes maestros. Rembrandt. Velázquez. Lo último de Tiziano. Construyen la ilusión, el truco…, pero te acercas un paso más y se desintegra en pinceladas. Abstracto, como de otro mundo. Una clase de belleza totalmente diferente y mucho más profunda. Es y no es.