Quotes from Donna Tartt

No—" his hands came together on the table—"it was one of the first antiques I ever bought, thirty years ago. In an American Folk sale. I'm not a great one for the folk art, never have been—this piece, not of the first quality, doesn't fit with anything else I own, and yet isn't it always the inappropriate thing, the thing that doesn't quite work, that's oddly the dearest?

Why did I obsess over people like this? Was it normal to fixate on strangers in this particular vivid, fevered way? I didn't think so. It was impossible to imagine some random passer-by on the street forming quite such an interest in me.

When I'd asked Mrs. Barbour where the washing machine was, she'd looked at me as if I'd asked for lye and lard to boil up for soap.)

won't last, it's

guess that anything we manage to save from history is a miracle.

Then on the opposite page a different ad, for digital cameras, scrawled in artsy letters and signed Joan Miró: You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life

and my love for her was really just that pure, as simple and steady as the moon.

Rain tapped and dripped at the skylight, casting watery shadows that streamed down the wall. Too shy to say anything, I waited for him to pick up the thread again- and when he didn't, we sat there peacefully, while I sipped my cooling tea (Lapsang Souchong, smoky and peculiar) and felt the strangeness of my life, and where I was.

as I stood there blinking in the deserted hall, was the one point at which I might have chosen to do something very different from what I actually did. But of course I didn't see this crucial moment then for what it was; I suppose we never do.

Few years ago, we were up north in Canada, in Alberta, this one-street town off the Pouce Coupe River? Dark the whole time, October to March, and fuck-all to do except read and listen to CBC radio. Had to drive fifty klicks to do our washing. Still —" he laughed – "loads better than Ukraine. Miami Beach, compared.

But then, six months ago, my dad hauled me with him to this shaddy town in Alaska. Seward Peninsula, just below Arctic Circle? And then, middle of May—we flew to Fairbanks on a prop plane, and then we came here.

Well, I don't know who wrote this, said Francis at last, his tone offhand and perfectly casual, but whoever they were, they certainly couldn't spell.

that fire of pure being

and leaving

No. Americans just persecute smaller countries that believe different from them.

Nobody said anything. Dust motes floated in a sunbeam.

And the flavor of Pippa's kiss- bittersweet and strange- stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.

In the water, a dark plume of blood blossomed by her foot; as I blinked, a thin red tendril spiraled up and curled over her pale toes, undulating in the water like a thread of crimson smoke.

Are you tired?" he said, looking at me closely. Was I? I was wide awake, and yet part of me was so glassed-off and numb I was practically in a coma. "If you'd rather have company? Perhaps if I build a fire in the other room? Tell me what you want." At this question, I felt a sharp rush of despair—for as bad as I felt there was nothing he could do for me, and from his face, I realized he knew that, too.

I felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way.

But still I was lonely. It was Boris I missed, the whole impulsive mess of him: gloomy, reckless, hot-tempered, appallingly thoughtless.

Tormented by what was happening, yet unable to stop it, I hovered around and watched the apartment vanishing piece by piece, like a bee watching its hive being destroyed.

short term boredom and long term pain

Light climbed and burst through the wild desert clouds- never-ending sky, acid blue, like a computer game or a test pilot's hallucination.