Wasn't that the way it always was? You didn't know, you couldn't tell, you just let it happen... Perhaps they didn't know themselves. Sometimes the line was very fine. Janet Fitch More Quotes by Janet Fitch More Quotes From Janet Fitch I wondered where he was now whether I would ever hear him again. Whether someone would love him, someday show him what beauty mean't. Janet Fitch someday shows mean I hated labels anyway. People didn't fit in slots--prostitute, housewife, saint--like sorting the mail. We were so mutable, fluid with fear and desire, ideals and angles, changeable as water. Janet Fitch desire water people Dawn tinted the darkness like water ink. Janet Fitch dawn darkness water How easy I was. Like a limpet I attached myself to anything, anyone who showed me the least attention. Janet Fitch easy attention Let me tell you a few things about regret...There is no end to it. You cannot find the beginning of the chain that brought us from there to here. Should you regret the whole chain, and the air in between, or each link separately as if you could uncouple them? Do you regret the beginning which ended so badly, or just the ending itself? Janet Fitch regret links air The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw. Only the oleanders thrived, their delicate poisonous blooms, their dagger green leaves. We could not sleep in the hot dry nights, my mother and I. Janet Fitch mother sleep spring I wanted to hear what she was saying. I wanted to smell that burnt midnight again, I wanted to feel that wind. It was a secret wanting, like a song I couldn't stop humming, or loving someone I could never have. No matter where I went, my compass pointed west. I would always know what time it was in California. Janet Fitch california song wind How vast was a human being's capacity for suffering. The only thing you could do was stand in awe of it. It wasn't a question of survival at all. It was the fullness of it, how much could you hold, how much could you care. Janet Fitch survival care suffering Most people use twenty verbs to describe everything from a run in their stocking to the explosion of an atomic bomb. You know the ones: Was, did, had, made, went, looked... One-size-fits-all looks like crap on anyone. Sew yourself a custom made suit. Pick a better verb. Challenge all those verbs to really lift some weight for you. Janet Fitch writing running people Beauty was deceptive. I would rather wear my pain, my ugliness. I was torn and stitched. I was a strip mine, and they would just have to look. I hoped I made them sick. I hoped they saw me in their dreams. Janet Fitch pain sick dream Take my advice. Stay away from all broken people. Janet Fitch broken advice people ...You know the mistrust of heights is the mistrust of self, you don't know whether you're going to jump. Janet Fitch oleanders height self There used to be a category called women's fiction - meaning not too rude, not too much sex, a bit domestic and internal. Women have changed so much. We're so varied. And we've become more interested in the same varied experience in fiction. Janet Fitch rude sex fiction That was the thing about words, they were clear and specific-chair, eye, stone- but when you talked about feelings, words were too stiff, they were this and not that, they couldn't include all the meanings. In defining, they always left something out. Janet Fitch eye stones feelings Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay. Janet Fitch poetry heart water Whenever she turned her steep focus to me, I felt the warmth that flowers must feel when they bloom through the snow, under the first concentrated rays of the sun. Janet Fitch focus flower snow Girls were born knowing how destructive the truth could be. They learned to hold it in, tamp it down, like gunpowder in an old fashioned gun. Then it exploded in your face on a November day in the rain. Janet Fitch girl gun rain We recived our colouring from the Norsemen,hairy savages who hacked their gods to pieces and hung the flesh from trees.We are the ones who sacked Rome.Fear only feeble old age and death in bed.Don't forget who you are. Janet Fitch rome age tree I couldn't imagine owning beauty like my mothers. I wouldn't dare. Janet Fitch imagine mom mother After all the fears, the warnings, after all, a woman's mistakes are different from a girl's. They are written by fire on stone. They are a trait and not an error. Janet Fitch girl fire mistake
