In our exterior life, we can be only one person. But in our imagination, we can be anyone, anywhere. Janet Fitch More Quotes by Janet Fitch More Quotes From Janet Fitch When you started thinking it was easy, you were forgetting what it cost. Janet Fitch oleanders cost thinking I imagined my soul taking in these words like silicated water in the Petrified Forest, turning my wood to patterned agate. I liked it when my mother shaped me this way. I thought clay must feel happy in the good potter's hand. Janet Fitch mother water hands My loneliness tasted like pennies. Janet Fitch pennies loneliness He reminded me of someone who put your fingers in the door and smiled and talked to you while he smashed them. Janet Fitch fingers doors I could hear the icy winds of Sweden, but he didn't seem to feel the chill. Janet Fitch icy sweden wind Although she was giddy with exhaustion, sleep was a lover who refused to be touched. Janet Fitch giddy lovers sleep The nearest I'd come to feeling anything like God was the plan blue cloudless sky and a certain silence, but how do you pray to that? Janet Fitch silence sky blue What can she possibly teach you, twenty seven names for tears? Janet Fitch twenties tears names Don't turn over the rocks if you don't want to see the pale creatures who live under them. Janet Fitch oleanders rocks want A novel is like a dream in which everyone is you. They’re all parts of yourself. Janet Fitch novel dream Who are you? the band sang. I tried to remember but I really couldn't say. Janet Fitch band remember The stupid things you say in the rain, that can't ever be washed away. Janet Fitch stupid-things stupid rain I wondered why it had to be so poisonous. Oleanders could live through anything, they could stand heat, drought, neglect, and put out thousands of waxy blooms. So what did they need poison for? Couldn't they just be bitter? They weren't like rattlesnakes, they didn't even eat what they killed. The way she boiled it down, distilled it, like her hatred. Maybe it was a poison in the soil, something about L.A., the hatred, the callousness, something we didn't want to think about, that the plant concentrated in its tissues. Maybe it wasn't a source of poison, but just another victim. Janet Fitch poison hatred thinking Aquamarines grew with emeralds, Claire told me. But emeralds were fragile and always broke into smaller pieces, while aquamarines were stronger, grew in huge crystals without any trouble, so they weren't worth as much. It was the emerald that didn't break that was the really valuable thing. Janet Fitch emeralds stronger pieces She wanted to wake up like Dorothy and see Michael's face peering over the side of the bed, laughing. WHY, YOU JUST HIT YOUR HEAD. But it was not a dream and there was no Kansas and he was never coming back. Janet Fitch kansas dream laughing I imagined Kandinsky's mind, spread out all over the world, and then gathered together. Everyone having only a piece of the puzzle. Only in a show like this could you see the complete picture, stack the pieces up, hold them to the light, see how it all fit together. It made me hopeful, like someday my life would make sense too, if I could just hold all the pieces together at the same time. Janet Fitch hopeful light mind The decor bowled me over. Everywhere I looked, there was something more to see. Botanical prints, a cross section of pomegranates, a passionflower vine and its fruit. Stacks of thick books on art and design and a collection of glass paperweights filled the coffee table. It was enormously beautiful, a sensibility I'd never encountered anywhere, a relaxed luxury. I could feel my mother's contemptuous gaze falling on the cluttered surfaces, but I was tired of three white flowers in a glass vase. There was more to life than that. Janet Fitch mother beautiful art What was the point in such loneliness among people. At least if you were by yourself, you had a good reason to be lonely. Janet Fitch lonely loneliness people I understood why she did it. At that moment I knew why people tagged graffiti on the walls of neat little houses and scratched the paint on new cars and beat up well-tended children. It was only natural to want to destroy something you could never have. Janet Fitch wall children people That was what she really wanted. To forget so thoroughly she'd never have another memory again, the bitter so bitter you gave up the sweet. Janet Fitch bitter sweet memories
