Marisha Pessl Quotes

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Books Character Dad Feelings Hate Writing

Well, life isn't a cakewalk, is it?! Eighty-nine percent of the world's most valuable art was created by men living in rat-infested flats. You think Velásquez wore Adidas? You think he enjoyed the luxuries of central heating and twenty-four-hour pizza delivery?!

Marisha Pessl

Art, Men, Thinking

Marisha Pessl (2013). “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, p.432, Penguin UK

48 Copy quote
It's kind of funny...the moments on which life hinges. I think growing up you always imagine your life - your success - depends on your family and how much money they have, where you go to college, what sort of job you can pin down, starting salary...But it doesn't, you know. You wouldn't believe this, but life hinges on a couple of seconds you never see coming. And what you decide in those few seconds determines everything from then on... And you have no idea what you'll do until you're there.

Marisha Pessl

Jobs, Growing Up, Couple

8 Copy quote
I hate how the people who really get you are the ones you can never hold on to for very long. And the ones who don’t understand you at all stick around.

Marisha Pessl

Hate, Long, People

16 Copy quote
Always live your life with your biography in mind," Dad was fond of saying. "Naturally, it won't be published unless you have a Magnificent Reason, but at the very least you will be living grandly.

Marisha Pessl

Dad, Live Your Life, Mind

Marisha Pessl (2006). “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, p.58, Penguin

4 Copy quote
May you walk a lighted path. May you fight for truth - your truth, not someone else's - and may you understand, above all things, that you are the most important concept, theory, and philosophy I have ever known.

Marisha Pessl

Philosophy, Inspiration, Fighting

Marisha Pessl (2006). “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, p.333, Penguin

4 Copy quote
For every man there exists bait he cannot resist swallowing.

Marisha Pessl

Motivational, Men, Bait

Marisha Pessl (2013). “Night Film”, p.463, Random House

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People don’t realize how easy life is to change. You just get on the bus.

Marisha Pessl

People, Realizing, Life Is

4 Copy quote
Life was a freight train barreling toward just one stop, our loved ones streaking past our windows in blurs of color and light. There was no holding on to any of it, and no slowing it down.

Marisha Pessl

Past, Light, Color

4 Copy quote
Just when you think you've hit rock bottom, you realize you're standing on another trapdoor.

Marisha Pessl

Thinking, Rocks, Realizing

4 Copy quote
Happiness is a hound dog in the sun. We aren't on Earth to be happy, but to experience incredible things. - Hannah Schneider

Marisha Pessl

Dog, Earth, Sun

4 Copy quote
It’s hard, in America, not to equate ‘happiness’ with ‘things’.

Marisha Pessl

America, Hard

Marisha Pessl (2006). “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, p.112, Penguin

4 Copy quote
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 those poor souls in school, in life, heading unwittingly down dangerous tangents, fatal digressions from which they will unlikely be able to emerge. Resist the temptation. Spend your energies on your story. Reworking it. Making it better.

Marisha Pessl

Sweet, School, Narrative Structure

Marisha Pessl (2006). “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, p.83, Penguin

7 Copy quote
He said you couldn't pretend the terrible things in life didn't happen. You can't clean it up. You keep all the refuse and the scars. It's how you learn. And try to make improvements.

Marisha Pessl

Things In Life, Trying, Scar

Marisha Pessl (2006). “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, p.199, Penguin

6 Copy quote
I was aware now, as ever, that between all people there were First Times You See Them and Last Times you See Them.

Marisha Pessl

People, Lasts, Firsts

Marisha Pessl (2006). “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, p.197, Penguin

4 Copy quote
Look at Picasso. O’Neill. Tennessee Williams. Capote. Were these shiny happy people spreading sunshine? No. Only the greatest of personal demons can force you to do powerful work.

Marisha Pessl

Powerful, Sunshine, People

4 Copy quote
Some people are as fragile as butterflies and sensitive and it’s your responsibility not to destroy them. Just because you can

Marisha Pessl

Butterfly, Responsibility, People

Marisha Pessl (2006). “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, p.201, Penguin

4 Copy quote
It's not fair. It's not. But then, that's the game. It makes life great. The fact that it ends when we don't want it to. The ending gives it meaning.

Marisha Pessl

Games, Giving, Want

4 Copy quote
She told me her father taught her to live life way beyond the cusp of it, way out in the outer reaches where most people never had the guts to go, where you got hurt. Where there was unimaginable beauty and pain ... They were always reminding themselves to stop measuring life in coffee spoons, mornings and afternoons, to keep swimming way, way down to the bottom of the ocean to find where the mermaids sang, each to each. Where there was danger and beauty and light. Only the now.

Marisha Pessl

Hurt, Morning, Pain

4 Copy quote
Show me what a man hates and I'll show you what he is.

Marisha Pessl

Hate, Men, Show Me

Marisha Pessl (2006). “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, p.201, Penguin

4 Copy quote
Like that lightning that comes out of the blue when there's not even a storm going on, just a crazy crack in the sky. With something like that right in front of you, you can't help but feel there's new possibilities out there.

Marisha Pessl

Crazy, Blue, Sky

4 Copy quote
Sometimes it takes more courage not to let yourself see. Sometimes knowledge is damaging - not enlightenment but enleadenment. If one recognizes the difference and prepares oneself - it is extraordinarily brave. Because when it comes to certain human miseries, the only witnesses should be the pavement and maybe the trees. (Gareth van Meer)

Marisha Pessl

Differences, Tree, Brave

4 Copy quote
It’s what we chase but never find. It is the mystery of our lives, the understanding that even when we have everything we want it is one day to leave us. It’s the something unseen, the lurking devastation, the darkness that gives our lives dimension.

Marisha Pessl

Life, Giving, Understanding

5 Copy quote
You journalists bulldoze life's mysteries, ignorant of what you're so ruthlessly turning up.

Marisha Pessl

Ignorant, Mystery, Journalist

Marisha Pessl (2013). “Night Film”, p.80, Random House

4 Copy quote
The late great Horace Lloyd Swithin (1844-1917), British essayist, lecturer, satirist, and social observer, wrote in his autobiographical Appointments, 1890-1901 (1902), "When one travels abroad, one doesn't so much discover the hidden Wonders of the World, but the hidden wonders of the individuals with whom one is traveling. They may turn out to afford a stirring view, a rather dull landscape, or a terrain so treacherous one finds it's best to forget the entire affair and return home.

Marisha Pessl

Home, Views, World

Marisha Pessl (2006). “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, p.280, Penguin

5 Copy quote
Always live your life with your biography in mind.

Marisha Pessl

Book, Beer, Live Your Life

Marisha Pessl (2006). “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, p.58, Penguin

7 Copy quote

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Born: October 26, 1977
Occupation: Writer
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