Oleanders Quotes

• Oleander time, she said. Lovers who kill each other now will blame it on the wind.

  Janet Fitch

  Wind, Lovers, Blame

  Janet Fitch (2013). “White Oleander”, p.7, Hachette UK

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• I wondered why it had to be so poisonous. Oleanders could live through anything, they could stand heat, drought, neglect, and put out thousands of waxy blooms. So what did they need poison for? Couldn't they just be bitter? They weren't like rattlesnakes, they didn't even eat what they killed. The way she boiled it down, distilled it, like her hatred. Maybe it was a poison in the soil, something about L.A., the hatred, the callousness, something we didn't want to think about, that the plant concentrated in its tissues. Maybe it wasn't a source of poison, but just another victim.

  Janet Fitch

  Thinking, Hatred, Poison

  9 Copy quote

• If you don't like what you see, stop looking.

  Nancy Lopez

  Aviation, Bodybuilding Motivation, Pilots And Flying

  29 Copy quote

• You have to let go of who you were, to become who you will be.

  Candace Bushnell

  Letting Go, Tv Shows, Letting You Go

  "Fictional character: Carrie Bradshaw". TV Series "Sex and the City" ("Anchors Away", 2002), www.imdb.com. 2002.

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• Don't attach yourself to anyone who shows you the least bit of attention because you're lonely. Lonliness is the human condition. No one is ever going to fill that space. The best thing you can do it know yourself... know what you want.

  Janet Fitch

  Lonely, Space, Attention

  "White Oleander". www.imdb.com. 2002.

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• Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In life, knowledge of poisons is essential. I've told you, nobody becomes an artist unless they have to.

  Janet Fitch

  Tattoo, Artist, Mind

  Janet Fitch (2002). “White Oleander”, Large Print Press

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• The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw. Only the oleanders thrived, their delicate poisonous blooms, their dagger green leaves. We could not sleep in the hot dry nights, my mother and I.

  Janet Fitch

  Mother, Spring, Sleep

  Janet Fitch (2013). “White Oleander”, p.7, Hachette UK

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• Let me tell you a few things about regret...There is no end to it. You cannot find the beginning of the chain that brought us from there to here. Should you regret the whole chain, and the air in between, or each link separately as if you could uncouple them? Do you regret the beginning which ended so badly, or just the ending itself?

  Janet Fitch

  Regret, Air, Links

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• Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow.

  Janet Fitch

  Loneliness, Tunnels, Soul

  Janet Fitch (2002). “White Oleander”, Large Print Press

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• The pearls weren't really white, they were a warm oyster beige, with little knots in between so if they broke, you only lost one. I wished my life could be like that, knotted up so that even if something broke, the whole thing wouldn't come apart.

  Janet Fitch

  Lost Ones, Oysters, White

  Janet Fitch (2002). “White Oleander”, Large Print Press

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• Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.

  Janet Fitch

  Heart, Water, Poetry

  Janet Fitch (2002). “White Oleander”, Large Print Press

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• I've told you, nobody becomes an artist unless they have to.

  Janet Fitch

  Artist

  Janet Fitch (2002). “White Oleander”, Large Print Press

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• Love humiliates you. Hatred cradles you.

  Michelle Pfeiffer

  Hatred, Cradle, Humiliate

  20 Copy quote

• 
Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.

  Janet Fitch

  Inspirational, Disappointment, Loneliness

  "White Oleander". Book by Janet Fitch, 1999.

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• How vast was a human being's capacity for suffering. The only thing you could do was stand in awe of it. It wasn't a question of survival at all. It was the fullness of it, how much could you hold, how much could you care.

  Janet Fitch

  Survival, Suffering, Care

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• Don't turn over the rocks if you don't want to see the pale creatures who live under them.

  Janet Fitch

  Rocks, Want, Pale

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• When you started thinking it was easy, you were forgetting what it cost.

  Janet Fitch

  Thinking, Cost, Forget

  Janet Fitch (2002). “White Oleander”, Large Print Press

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• The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.

  Janet Fitch

  Want, Way, Cattle

  Janet Fitch (2013). “White Oleander”, p.81, Hachette UK

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• If evil means to be self-motivated, to be the center of one’s own universe, to live on one’s own terms, then every artist, every thinker, every original mind, is evil.

  Janet Fitch

  Mean, Artist, Self

  Janet Fitch (2002). “White Oleander”, Large Print Press

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• You must always know what it is that you want.

  Paulo Coelho

  Alchemist, Personal Legend, Want

  Paulo Coelho (1998). “The Alchemist - 10th Anniversary Edition”, HarperSanFrancisco

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• I hated labels anyway. People didn't fit in slots--prostitute, housewife, saint--like sorting the mail. We were so mutable, fluid with fear and desire, ideals and angles, changeable as water.

  Janet Fitch

  People, Water, Desire

  Janet Fitch (2013). “White Oleander”, p.88, Hachette UK

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• Isn't it funny.I'm enjoying my hatred so much more than i ever enjoyed love. Love is temperamental. Tiring. It makes demands. Love uses you, changes its mind. But hatred, now, that's something you can use. Sculpt. Wield. It's hard, or soft, however you need it. Love humiliates you, but Hatred cradles you.

  Janet Fitch

  Love Is, Hatred, Mind

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• This is mankind's destiny, the engine with fuels us as a race.

  Janet Finch

  Destiny, Race, Fuel

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• The question of good and evil will always be one of philosophy's most intriguing problems, up there with the problem of existence itself...If evil means to be self motivated, to be the center of one's own universe, to live on one's own terms, then every artist, every thinker, every original mind, is evil. Because we dare to look through our own eyes rather than mouth cliches lent us from the so-called Fathers. To dare to see is to steal fire from the Gods. This is mankind's destiny, the engine with fuels us as a race.

  Janet Finch

  Father, Philosophy, Mean

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• ...You know the mistrust of heights is the mistrust of self, you don't know whether you're going to jump.

  Janet Fitch

  Self, Height, Mistrust

  Janet Fitch (2013). “White Oleander”, p.207, Hachette UK

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