I knew it like destiny, and at the same time, I knew it as choice. Jeanette Winterson More Quotes by Jeanette Winterson More Quotes From Jeanette Winterson What kills love? Only this: Neglect. Not to see you when you stand before me. Not to think of you in the little things. Not to make the road wide for you, the table spread for you. To choose you out of habit not desire, to pass the flower seller without a thought. To leave the dishes unwashed, the bed unmade, to ignore you in the mornings, make use of you at night. To crave another while pecking your cheek. To say your name without hearing it, to assume it is mine to call. Jeanette Winterson flower morning night What's invisible to us is also crucial for our own well-being. Jeanette Winterson well-being invisible literature The tamer my love, the farther away it is from love. In fierceness, in heat, in longing, in risk, I find something of love's nature. In my desire for you, I burn at the right temperature to walk through love's fire. So when you ask me why I cannot love you more calmly, I answer that to love you calmly is not to love you at all. Jeanette Winterson risk fire love-you In a world where meaning is often absent or imposed, reading offers a dialogue with ourselves, with society, with history, and with the dead. Jeanette Winterson dialogue reading world We are all historians in our small way. Jeanette Winterson historian way Don't regret your life, child, it will pass soon enough. Jeanette Winterson soon-enough regret children Today, the sun is everywhere, and everything solid is nothing but its own shadow, I know that the real things in life, the things I remember, the things I turn over in my hands, are not houses, bank accounts, prizes or promotions. What I remember is love -- all love -- love of this dirt road, this sunrise, a day by the river, the stranger I met in a café. Myself, even, which is the hardest thing of all to love, because love and selfishness are not the same thing. It is easy to be selfish. It is hard to love who I am. No wonder I am surprised if you do. Jeanette Winterson selfish who-i-am real If the sun is shining, stand in it- yes, yes, yes. Happy times are great, but happy times pass- they have to- because time passes. The pursuit of happiness is more elusive; it is life-long, and it is not goal-centred. What you are pursuing is meaning- a meaningful life... There are times when it will go so wrong that you will be barely alive, and times when you realise that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else's terms. Jeanette Winterson happy-times pursuit-of-happiness meaningful History is not a suicide note -- it is a record of our survival. Jeanette Winterson records survival suicide History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing. Jeanette Winterson ties games history Like all familiar objects, it had become invisible. Jeanette Winterson invisible objects familiar Now that physics is proving the intelligence of the universe what are we to do about the stupidity of mankind? I include myself. I know that the earth is not flat but my feet are. I know that space is curved but my brain has been condoned by habit to grow in a straight line. What I call light is my own blend of darkness. What I call a view is my hand-painted trompe-l'oeil. I run after knowledge like a ferret down a ferret hole. My limitations, I call the boundaries of what can be known. I interpret the world by confusing other people's psychology with my own. Jeanette Winterson light views running When my friend Melot set the trap, I think I knew it. I turned to death full face, as I had turned to love with my whole body. I would let death enter me as you had entered me. You had crept along my blood vessels through the wound, and the blood that circulates returns to the heart. You circulated me, you made me blush like a girl in the hoop of your hands. You were in my arteries and my lymph, you were the colour just under my skin, and if I cut myself, it was you I bled. Red Isolde, alive on my fingers, and always the force of blood pushing you back to my heart. Jeanette Winterson cutting girl heart There are times when it will go so wrong that you will barely be alive, and times when you realise that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else's terms. Jeanette Winterson term alive half Love, they say, enslaves and passion is a demon and many have been lost for love. I know this is true, but I know too that without love we grope the tunnels of our lives and never see the sun. When I fell in love it was as though I looked into a mirror for the first time and saw myself. I lifted my hand in bewilderment and felt my cheeks, my neck. This was me. And when I had looked at myself and grown accustomed to who I was, I was not afraid to hate parts of me because I wanted to be worthy of the mirror bearer. Jeanette Winterson passion hate life Not much touches us, but we long to be touched. We lie awake at night willing the darkness to part and show us a vision. Jeanette Winterson night long lying Islands are metaphors of the heart, no matter what poet says otherwise. Jeanette Winterson matter islands heart You said, 'I love you.' Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear? Jeanette Winterson said love-you long Hopeless heart that thrives on paradox; that longs for the beloved and is secretly relieved when the beloved is not there. Jeanette Winterson beloved hopeless heart live in the space between chaos and shape. I walk the line that continually threatens to lose its tautness under me, dropping me into the dark pit where there is no meaning. At other times the line is so wired that it lights up the soles of my feet, gradually my whole body, until I am my own beacon, and I see then the beauty of newly created worlds, a form that is not random. A new beginning. Jeanette Winterson new-beginnings feet dark
