Donna Tartt Quotes - Page 3

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• She closed her eyes, dark-lidded, dark shadows beneath them; she really was older, not the glancing-eyed girl I had fallen in love with but no less beautiful for that; beautiful now in a way that less excited my senses than tore at my very heart.

  Donna Tartt

  Beautiful, Girl, Heart

  Donna Tartt (1993). “The Secret History: A Novel”, Ballantine Books

  4 Copy quote

• Lexical variety, eccentric constructions and punctuation, variant spellings, archaisms, the ability to pile clause on clause, the effortless incorporation of words from other languages: flexibility, and inclusiveness, is what makes English great; and diversity is what keeps it healthy and growing, exuberantly regenerating itself with rich new forms and usages.

  Donna Tartt

  Diversity, Healthy, Growing

  Interview with Michael Pietsch, www.slate.com. October 11, 2013.

  7 Copy quote

• Children have very sharp powers of observation - probably sharper than adults - yet at the same time their emotional reactions are murky and much more primitive.

  Donna Tartt

  Children, Emotional, Adults

  "A Conversation with Donna Tartt, Author of THE LITTLE FRIEND". Interview, www.penguinrandomhouse.com. October 22, 2002.

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• It happened in New York, April 10th, nineteen years ago. Even my hand balks at the date. I had to push to write it down, just to keep the pen moving on the paper. It used to be a perfectly ordinary day, but now it sticks up on the calendar like a rusty nail.

  Donna Tartt

  New York, Moving, Writing

  7 Copy quote

• For me - showing a half-finished manuscript is tricky. Just as a bird will get spooked and abandon her eggs if some outside party comes around and makes too much noise or pokes around the nest too intrusively - well, that's what it's like for me if I show work too early and I get a lot of editorial suggestions at the wrong time.

  Donna Tartt

  Party, Eggs, Bird

  Interview with Michael Pietsch, www.slate.com. October 11, 2013.

  6 Copy quote

• When you feel homesick,’ he said, ‘just look up. Because the moon is the same wherever you go.

  Donna Tartt

  Moon, Looks, Homesick

  48 Copy quote

• And as we leave Donne and Walton on the shores of Metahemeralism, we wave a fond farewell to those famous chums of yore.

  Donna Tartt

  Farewell, Wave, Donne

  Donna Tartt (2011). “The Secret History”, p.102, Vintage

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• There's an expectation these days that novels - like any other consumer product - should be made on a production line, with one dropping from the conveyor belt every couple of years.

  Donna Tartt

  Couple, Years, Expectations

  "Conversation with Donna Tartt, Author of 'The Little Friend'". Random House interview, www.randomhouse.com. October, 2003.

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• Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?

  Donna Tartt

  Beautiful, Caring, Care

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• Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.

  Donna Tartt

  Genuine, Contrary

  Donna Tartt (2011). “The Secret History”, p.37, Vintage

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• One likes to think there's something in it, that old platitude amor vincit omnia. But if I've learned one thing in my short sad life, it is that that particular platitude is a lie. Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.

  Donna Tartt

  Lying, Thinking, Sad Life

  Donna Tartt (2011). “The Secret History”, p.211, Vintage

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• The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.

  Donna Tartt

  Snow, Mountain, Melting

  Donna Tartt (2011). “The Secret History”, p.4, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• When I'm writing, I am concentrating almost wholly on concrete detail: the color a room is painted, the way a drop of water rolls off a wet leaf after a rain.

  Donna Tartt

  Rain, Writing, Color

  7 Copy quote

• Taking on challenging projects is the way that one grows and extends one's range as a writer, one's technical command, so I consider the time well-spent

  Donna Tartt

  Aggravation, Challenges, Literature

  19 Copy quote

• I guess that anything we manage to save from history is a miracle.

  Donna Tartt

  Miracle, Manage

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• Character, to me, is the life's blood of fiction

  Donna Tartt

  Character, Blood, Fiction

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• But romantic vision can also lead one away from certain very hard, ugly truths about life that are important to know.

  Donna Tartt

  Romantic, Life Is Hard, Vision

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• Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.

  Donna Tartt

  Thinking, Doe, Fool

  Donna Tartt (2011). “The Secret History”, p.211, Vintage

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• I began to see new buildings, too, which were connected by futuristic walkways lit from beneath. Long, cool perspectives of modern architecture, rising phosphorescent and eerie from the rubble.

  Donna Tartt

  Eerie, Long, Perspective

  Donna Tartt (2011). “The Secret History”, p.523, Vintage

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• If I had grown up in that house I couldn't have loved it more, couldn't have been more familiar with the creak of the swing, or the pattern of the clematis vines on the trellis, or the velvety swell of land as it faded to gray on the horizon . . . . The very colors of the place had seeped into my blood.

  Donna Tartt

  Swings, Blood, Color

  Donna Tartt (2011). “The Secret History”, p.96, Vintage

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• Who cares? If he is good to you? None of us ever find enough kindness in the world, do we?

  Donna Tartt

  Kindness, Who Cares, World

  Donna Tartt (2013). “The Goldfinch”, p.215, Hachette UK

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• I love the tradition of Dickens, where even the most minor walk-on characters are twitching and particular and alive.

  Donna Tartt

  Character, Alive, Literature

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• I'd been assured, at age 21 or so, by a well-known editor who saw the first part of The Secret History in what was basically its final form, that it would never be published because "no woman has ever written a successful novel from a male point of view."

  Donna Tartt

  Successful, Views, Editors

  "Donna Tartt and Michael Pietsch". Interview with Michael Pietsch, www.slate.com. October 11, 2013.

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• Beauty alters the grain of reality.

  Donna Tartt

  Reality, Grain

  Donna Tartt (2013). “The Goldfinch”, p.574, Hachette UK

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• Still when I lost her, I lost sight of any landmark that might have led me someplace happier, to some more populated or congenial life.

  Donna Tartt

  Sight, Might, Landmarks

  Donna Tartt (2013). “The Goldfinch”, p.8, Hachette UK

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