Quotes from Donna Tartt

The idea of living there, of not having to go back ever again to asphalt and shopping malls and modular furniture; of no one marrying or going home or getting a job in a town a thousand miles away or doing any of the traitorous things friends do after college... the idea was so truly heavenly that I'm not sure I thought, even then, it could ever really happen, but I like to believe I did.

unbearable claustrophobia of the soul, the windowless room, no way out, waves of shame and horror

I was different, but it wasn't. And as the light flickered over it in bands, I had the queasy sense of my own life, in comparison, as a patternless and transient burst of energy, a fizz of biological static just as random as the street lamps flashing past.

Even more terrible, as we grow older, to learn that no person, no matter how beloved, can truly understand us.

DeFrees, a dealer in nineteenth-century watercolors who for all her stiff clothes and strong perfumes was a hugger and a cuddler, with the old-ladyish habit of liking

By contrast Hobie lived and wafted like some great sea mammal in his own mild atmosphere, the dark brown of tea stains and tobacco, where every clock in the house said something different and time didn't actually correspond to the standard measure but instead meandered along at its own sedate tick-tock obeying the pace of his antique-crowded backwater, far from the factory-built, epoxy-glued version of the world.

Because I don't care how often or willingly they say it: no one will ever, ever be able to persuade me that life is some awesome, rewarding treat. Because here's the truth: life is catastrophe

He doesn't care that Bunny is dead. I could forgive him if that was why he felt this way, but it isn't. He wouldn't care if we killed half a dozen people. All that matters to him is keeping his own name out of it.

Then why aren't you happy?" "I don't want to talk about it." "And

Black birds. Disastrous lead-colored skies out of Egbert van der Poel.

we spent a sad afternoon burying her in the back garden of Francis's house, where one of Francis's aunts had an elaborate cat cemetery, complete with headstones

Todo es injusto! ¿A quién nos quejamos en este lugar de mierda? ¿Quién está a cargo aquí?

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

I've come to believe that there's no truth beyond illusion. Because, between 'reality' on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there's a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being, where two very different surfaces mingle and blur to provide what life does not: and this is the space where all art exists, and all magic. And—I would argue as well—all love.

Quizá la buena suerte se parecía a la mala suerte en que tardabas un tiempo en asimilarla.

hinc illae lacrimae, hence those tears.

It was sometimes difficult to believe that Dr. Roland was a tenured professor in the Social Science Department of this, a distinguished college. He was more like some gabby old codger who would sit next to you on a bus and try to show you bits of paper he kept folded in his wallet.

But now, at news of his death, people was strangely frantic. Everyone suddenly had know him. Everyone was deranged with grief. Everyone was just gonna have to trying to get on as well as they could whiteout him. He would have wanted it that way That was a phrase i heard many times that week on the lips of people who had absolutely no idea what Bunny wanted.

And isn't the whole point of things-beautiful things-that they connect you to some larger beauty

The world is much stranger than we know or can say.

Regardless of what Julian felt for me, there was no denying that what I felt for him was love and trust of a very genuine sort. As my own parents had distanced themselves from me more and more - a retreat they had been in the process of effecting for many years - it was Julian who had grown to be the sole figure of paternal benevolence in my life, or, indeed, of benevolence of any sort. To me, he seemed my only protector in the world.

Running along the back wall was a long glass trophy case filled with loving cups, ribbons, school and sports memorabilia; in ominous proximity were several large funeral wreaths which, in conjunction with the trophies, gave that corner of the room a Kentucky Derby sort of look.

incidents of virtually no significance threw me to the stars or plunged me into speechless depressions

And your point is?? My point is like, democracy is excuse for any fucking thing. Violence ...greed ...stupidity... anything is ok if Americans do it. Right? Am I right? You really can't shut up, can you?