Quotes from Jeanette Winterson

For myself I will plant a cypress tree and it will outlive me. That's what I miss about the fields, the sense of the future as well as the present. That one day what you plant will spring up unexpectedly; a shoot, a tree, just when you were looking the other way, thinking about something else. I like to know that life will outlive me, that's a happiness Bonaparte never understood.

My mother told stories - of their life in the war and how she'd played the accordion in the air-raid shelter and it had got rid of the rats. Apparently rats like violins and pianos but they can't stand the accordion . . .

The more I read the more I fought against the assumption that literature is for the minority - of a particular education or class. Books were my birthright too.

You don't have to ask a child about happy, you see it. They are or they are not. Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not.

People do go back, but they don't survive, because two realities are claiming them at the same time. Such things are too much.

Under her fierce gaze my past is burned away.

A black hole sucks up its surroundings and even light never escapes. Better then to ask no questions? Better then to be a contented pig than an unhappy Socrates? Since factory farming is tougher on pigs than it is on philosophers I'll take a chance.

I have learned what love costs. I never count it but I know what it costs.

But the rags and the ribbons turn to years and then the years are gone.

She knew full well that writers were sex-crazed bohemians who broke the rules and didn't go out to work.

Shakespeare," he thought as he scribbled away. "Foolish fancy. This is life as it is lived.

No one else was there, with the weather like this. If I still lived there, I'd be indoors too. It's a visitor's privilege to be foolish.

Mi madre odiaba ser una don nadie, así que como todos los niños, adoptados o no, he tenido que vivir algunas de las vidas que ella no pudo vivir. Es algo que hacemos por nuestros padres, no tenemos otra opción.

I have ridden out all the storms," said Shakespeare, "even the ones I wrote myself. Here, look, it begins…

Truth is a questioning place.

Biz hissedecek ÅŸekilde tasarlar?mlan?p inÅŸa edildik, dolay?s?yla hiçbir zihinsel halimiz, hiçbir düÅŸüncemiz yoktur ki ayn? zamanda bir duygu durumu olmas?n. Hiçbirimiz a??r?, kald?rabileceÄŸimizden fazla hissetmeyiz, ancak baz?lar?m?z mümkün olduÄŸunca az hissedebilmek için elinden geleni yapar.

Ti do un consiglio: quando sei giovane e ti capita di leggere qualcosa che non ti piace affatto, mettilo da parte e rileggilo tra tre anni dopo. Se ancora non ti piace, rileggilo dopo altri tre anni. E quando sei giovane - quando arrivi ai cinquant'anni come me - rileggerai il libro che ti è piaciuto in assoluto di meno.

Shakespeare shook his head and sunk his chin into his ruff, making him look more owl-like than ever. "I have written about other worlds often enough. I have said what I can say. There are many kinds of reality. This is but one kind.

Can anyone deny that we are haunted? What is it that crouches under the myths we have made? Always the physical presence of something split off.

You might reason that you can easily feed a leopard and that your garden is big enough, but you will know in your dreams at least that no leopard is ever satisfied with what it is given. After nine nights must come ten and every desperate meeting only leaves you desperate for another. There is never enough to eat, never enough garden for your love.

I kissed her, and forgot death.

Time is a great deadener. People forget, get bored, grow old, go away.

gifts — that strange word, a signifier meaning disappointment you can hold in your hands.

I libri sono per me una casa. I libri non fanno una casa, sono una casa, nel senso che, così come apri una porta, apri un libro e ci entri.