Sometimes it's about playing a poor hand well. Donna Tartt More Quotes by Donna Tartt More Quotes From Donna Tartt It's hard for me to show work while I'm writing, because other people's comments will influence what happens. Donna Tartt influencewritingpeople It's funny, but thinking back on it now, I realize that this particular point in time, as I stood there blinking in the deserted hall, was the one point at which I might have chosen to do something very much different from what I actually did. But of course I didn't see this crucial moment for what it actually was; I suppose we never do. Instead, I only yawned, and shook myself from the momentary daze that had come upon me, and went on my way down the stairs. Donna Tartt mightwaythinking Shakespearean words, foreign words, slang and dialect and made-up phrases from kids on the street corner: English has room for them all. And writers - not just literary writers, but popular writers as well - breathe air into English and keep it lively by making it their own, not by adhering to some style manual that gets handed out to college Freshmen in a composition class. Donna Tartt collegeairkids On the other hand, I mean, that is what writers have always been supposed to do, was to rely on their own devices and to - I mean, writing is a lonely business. Donna Tartt lonelywritingmean For me - showing a half-finished manuscript is tricky. Just as a bird will get spooked and abandon her eggs if some outside party comes around and makes too much noise or pokes around the nest too intrusively - well, that's what it's like for me if I show work too early and I get a lot of editorial suggestions at the wrong time. Donna Tartt eggspartybird Storytelling and elegant style don't always go hand in hand. Donna Tartt storytellingstylehands All those layers of silence upon silence. Donna Tartt layerssilence Children love secret club houses. They love secrecy even when there's no need for secrecy Donna Tartt secret-lovehousechildren Are you happy here?" I said at last. He considered this for a moment. "Not particularly," he said. "But you're not very happy where you are, either. Donna Tartt where-you-arelastsmoments One likes to think there's something in it, that old platitude amor vincit omnia. But if I've learned one thing in my short sad life, it is that that particular platitude is a lie. Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool. Donna Tartt sad-lifelyingthinking There is to me about this place a smell of rot, the smell of rot that ripe fruit makes. Nowhere, ever, have the hideous mechanics of birth and copulation and death -those monstrous upheavals of life that the Greeks call miasma, defilement- been so brutal or been painted up to look so pretty; have so many people put so much faith in lies and mutability and death death death. Donna Tartt smelllyingpeople As I stood with her on the platform - she impatient, tapping her foot, leaning forward to look down the tracks - it seemed more than I could bear to see her go. Francis was around the corner, buying her a book to read on the train. 'I don't want you to leave,' I said. 'I don't want to, either.' 'Then don't.' 'I have to.' We stood looking at each other. It was raining. She looked at me with her rain-colored eyes. Camilla, I love you,' I said. 'Let's get married. Donna Tartt rainlove-youbook Clearly something had gone wrong, badly, only I wasn't quite sure what—apart from knowing that I was responsible somehow, in the generalized miasma of shame and unworthiness and being-a-burden that never quite left me. Donna Tartt never-quitknowinggone For if the modern mind is whimsical and discursive, the classical mind is narrow, unhesitating, relentless. It is not a quality of intelligence that one encounters frequently these days. But though I can digress with the best of them, I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive. Donna Tartt qualitysoulmind I suppose the shock of recognition is one of the nastiest shocks of all. Donna Tartt recognitionshock When I'm writing, I am concentrating almost wholly on concrete detail: the color a room is painted, the way a drop of water rolls off a wet leaf after a rain. Donna Tartt colorrainwriting Some things are too terrible to grasp at once. Other things - naked, sputtering, indelible in their horror - are too terrible to really grasp ever at all.It is only later, in solitude, in memory that the realization dawns: when the ashes are cold; when the mourners have departed; when one looks around and finds oneself - quite to one's surprise - in an entirely different world. Donna Tartt departedsolitudememories That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch. Donna Tartt eyeheartmean In short: I felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way. Donna Tartt subtleessentialsway The Little Friend is a long book. It's also completely different from my first novel: different landscape, different characters, different use of language and diction, different approach to story. Donna Tartt characterlongbook
