Marisha Pessl Quotes

77 quotes in 1436 categories

• Betrayal isn't ridiculous. It's the reason empires fall.
• There was quantum mechanics, string theory, and then there was the most mind-bending frontier of the natural world, women.
• I'm not afraid of total failure. In the end, we're all just food for worms, so what are we so worried about?
• It was never the act itself but our own understanding of it that defeated us, over and over again.
• Good bands you can kind of lose, then come back and realize they're still good.
• I haven't always been a writer and I suppose I tiptoed around the idea of writing full time, because it's so isolating.
• Certainly one of the surprising truths of having a book published is realizing that your book is as open to interpretation as an abstract painting.…
• I believe writers need to be chameleons, or like Meryl Streep, who can play all sorts of characters. A good writer should be able to…
• I hate to think of a day where a compelling book or a compelling authorial voice would be lost simply because that person doesn't have…
• If I scribbled a few words on a cocktail napkin and showed it to my family, they'd proclaim it astonishing and more culturally relevant than…
• In America, people of a certain age ask, 'Where were you when Kennedy was shot?' In my house you were more likely to be asked,…
• In college I studied '60s and '70s radicalism, student activism, forms of political violence, groups like the Weathermen, the Black Panthers, the Symbionese Liberation Army,…
• Occasionally when I'm procrastinating writing, I'll while away the hours on iTunes. You can just keep going forever and find these bands you'd never normally…
• When I'm creating characters, I definitely think of theme songs. Writing for me is very visual, so I sometimes think of it in terms of…
• Justice wields an erratic sword, grants mercy to fortunate few. Yet if man doesn't fight for her, 'tis chaos he's left to.
• But most critically, sweet, never try to change the narrative structure of someone else's story, though you will certainly be tempted to, as you watch…
• Not returning phone calls is the severest form of torture in the civilized world.
• I was aware too how strange adults were, how theirs lives were vaster than they wanted anyone to realize, that they actually stretched on and…
• Sometimes it takes more courage not to let yourself see. Sometimes knowledge is damaging - not enlightenment but enleadenment.
• It was as if Hannah had sprung a leak and her character, usually so meticulous and contained, was spilling all over the place.

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