“But though it was the most resonant and real-seeming thing that had happened in a long time, I didn't want to spoil… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“he said well if you can’t plan it out ahead of time, you’ll just have to work it out as you go… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Nihil sub sole novum, I thought as I walked back down the hall to my room. Any action, in the fullness of… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“it would be a long, long time before I heard anything from Boris again.” — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Yet my longing for her was like a bad cold that had hung on for years despite my conviction that I was… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Time, and repeated screenings, have endowed the memory with a menace the original did not possess. -The Secret History, pg. 260” — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
Taking on challenging projects is the way that one grows and extends one's range as a writer, one's technical command, so I… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“But depression wasn’t the word. This was a plunge encompassing sorrow and revulsion far beyond the personal: a sick, drenching nausea at… — 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
To really be centered and to really work well and to think about the kinds of things that I need to think… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
Criticism at the wrong time, even if it's legitimate criticism, can be seriously damaging and make the writer lose faith in what… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
In order for a long piece of work to engage a novelist over an extended period of time, it has to deal… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Putting your time in at the office; dutifully spawning your two point five; smiling politely at your retirement party; then chewing on… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“[S]he came up suddenly beside me so I saw her reflection in a mirror. At the sight of her I was paralyzed… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“even when I couldn’t see it I liked knowing it was there for the depth and solidity it gave things, the reinforcement… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“I never took it out...though even when I couldn't see it I liked knowing it was there for the depth and solidity… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“despite his faults, which were numerous and spectacular, the reason I’d liked Boris and felt happy around him from almost the moment… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
It is easy to see things in retrospect. But I was ignorant then of everything but my own happiness, and I don’t… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
For me - showing a half-finished manuscript is tricky. Just as a bird will get spooked and abandon her eggs if some… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“I closed my eyes, overwhelmed with the wine, with her, with the impossibility of explaining it. “It's just—his last moments on earth,… — 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
“I was deluded, and I knew it. Worse: my love for Pippa was muddied-up below the waterline with my mother, with my… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Amsterdam, I dreamed about my mother for the first time in years. I’d been shut up in my hotel for more than… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“But depression wasn't the word. This was a plunge encompassing sorrow and revulsion far beyond the personal: a sick, drenching nausea at… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“We looked at each other, for a long strange moment that I’ve never forgotten, actually, like two animals meeting at twilight, during… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“For humans-trapped in biology-there was no mercy: we lived a while, we fussed around for a bit and died, we rotted in… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“At her tone, at once intimate and formal, a terrible sadness came over me, and when we looked at each other it… — 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
And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Nihil sub sole novum [...] Any action, in the fullness of time, sinks to nothingness.” — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“...it was reassuring to know that far away, whales swam untroubled in Baltic waters and monks in arcane time zones chanted ceaselessly… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“Besides I think it's good to change the place where one sleeps from time to time. I believe it gives one more… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“My heart - which, thrilled at my daring, had held its breath for a moment or two - began suddenly to beat… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
My novels aren't really generated by a single conceptual spark; it's more a process of many different elements that come together unexpectedly… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
Are you happy here?" I said at last. He considered this for a moment. "Not particularly," he said. "But you're not very… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“And the painting, above his head, was the still point where it all hinged: dreams and signs, past and future, luck and… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
“We looked at each other. And it occurred to me that despite his faults, which were numerous and spectacular, the reason I… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
It's funny, but thinking back on it now, I realize that this particular point in time, as I stood there blinking in… — 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
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