“He’s telling you that living things don’t last—it’s all temporary. Death in life.” — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other.… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
But romantic vision can also lead one away from certain very hard, ugly truths about life that are important to know. — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“What you want is to live and be happy in the world is a woman (or man) who has her (his) own… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“I’d be perfectly happy if I could sit looking at the same half dozen paintings for the rest of my life. I… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Because it is dangerous to ignore the existence of the irrational. The more cultivated a person is, the more intelligent, the more… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Here is my experience. Stay away from the ones you love too much. Those are the ones who will kill you. What… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“If he really wanted to be happy in the world, Horst? To have any kind of joyful or happy life? He should… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
One likes to think there's something in it, that old platitude amor vincit omnia. But if I've learned one thing in my… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“with real greatness, there’s a jolt at the end of the wire. It doesn’t matter how often you grab hold of the… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“crazy,” she’d said, “but I’d be perfectly happy if I could sit looking at the same half dozen paintings for the rest… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“when what she needed was something concrete, some small final memory to slip its hand in hers and accompany her—sightless now, stumbling—through… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“It was as if I’d suffered a chemical change of the spirit: as if the acid balance of my psyche had shifted… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death)… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Because it is dangerous to ignore the existence of the irrational. The more cultivated a person is, the more intelligent, the more… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Five minutes before Julian arrived, they might be slouched in the living room -- curtains drawn, dinner simmering on chafing dishes in… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“...the thought of returning to any kind of normal routine seemed disloyal, wrong. It kept being a shock every time I remembered… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Well the Dutch invented the microscope," she said. "They were jewellers, grinders of lenses. The want it all as detailed as possible… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“It's not as if we're running a hospital for sick children down here, let's put it that way. Where's the nobility in… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“But though I knew just how lucky I was, still it was impossible to feel happy or even grateful for my good… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“You could study the connections for years and never work it out-it was all about things coming together,things falling apart,time warp, my… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“It seemed my whole life was composed of these disjointed fractions of time, hanging around in one public place and then another,… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Because I don’t care what anyone says or how often or winningly they say it: no one will ever, ever be able… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Where’s the nobility in patching up a bunch of old tables and chairs? Corrosive to the soul, quite possibly. I’ve seen too… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Well—I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as you. For me: that… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
What's mysterious, ambiguous, inexplicable. What doesn't fit into a story, what doesn't have a story. Glint of brightness on a barely-there chain.… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“I don’t care what anyone says or how often or winningly they say it: no one will ever, ever be able to… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty? Those first images that crack your heart wide… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
In short: I felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way. — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
Everything takes me longer than I expect. It's the sad truth about life — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“(...) and how precious was life that two such friends, in so big world, should find each other again after so great separation?” — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“How had I fetched up into this strange new life, where drunk foreigners shouted around me in the night, and all my… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Because I don’t care what anyone says or how often or winningly they say it: no one will ever, ever be able… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“The problem (as I’d learned, repeatedly) was that thirty-six hours in, with your body in full revolt, and the remainder of your… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“He’s telling you that living things don’t last—it’s all temporary. Death in life. That’s why they’re called natures mortes. Maybe you don’t… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
When I looked at the painting I felt the same convergence on a single point: a flickering sun-struck instance that existed now… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“between ‘reality’ on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there’s a middle zone, a rainbow edge where… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
I hope we're all ready to leave the phenomenal world, and enter into the sublime? — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
And the flavor of Pippa's kiss--bittersweet and strange--stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
There's an expectation these days that novels - like any other consumer product - should be made on a production line, with one dropping… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“A month or two before, I would have been appalled at the idea of any murder at all. But that Sunday afternoon, as I… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
Well, I think storytellers have always found murder a fascinating device. — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
Always remember, the person we’re really working for is the person who’s restoring the piece a hundred years from now. He’s the one we… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“The silence between us was happy and strange, connected by the cord and the icy voices thinly echoing. “You don’t have to talk,” she… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“It is a terrible thing to learn as a child that one is a being separate from all the world, that no one and… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“You didn’t meet many people who moved freely through the world with such a vigorous contempt for it and at the same time such… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“maybe that’s what’s waiting for us at the end of the journey, a majesty unimaginable until the very moment we find ourselves walking through… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
