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7d2a2b9
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As far as I was concerned men were something you had around the place, not particularly interesting, but quite harmless. I had never shown the slightest feeling for them, and apart from my never wearing a skirt, saw nothing else in common between us.
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tomboy
lesbian
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Jeanette Winterson |
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d9fd70a
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I have a head for heights it's true, but no stomach for the depths. Strange then to have plumbed so many.
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heights
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Jeanette Winterson |
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8632c4e
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They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true, how could the world go on? How could we ever get up off our knees? How could we ever recover from the wonder of it? By forgetting. We cannot keep in mind too many things. There is only the present and nothing to remember.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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8d49a7b
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There's no such thing as autobiography, there's only art and lies
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Jeanette Winterson |
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b9c0fce
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One thing I am certain of, I do not want to be betrayed, but thats quite hard to say casually, at the beginning of a relationship. It's not a word people use very often, which confuses me, because there are different kinds of infidelity, but betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it. By betrayal, I mean promising to be on your side, and then being on somebody else's.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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e232093
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The future is foretold from the past and the future is only possible because of the past. Without past and future, the present is partial. All time is eternally present and so all time is ours. There is no sense in forgetting and every sense in dreaming. Thus the present is made rich.
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present
time
past
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Jeanette Winterson |
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96d3f07
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It is a true saying, that what you fear you find.
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find
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Jeanette Winterson |
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16c0fec
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The Hopi, an Indian tribe, have a language as sophisticated as ours, but no tenses for past, present and future. The division does not exist. What does this say about time? Matter, that thing the most solid and the well-known, which you are holding in your hands and which makes up your body, is now known to be mostly empty space. Empty space and points of light. What does this say about the reality of the world?
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time
reality
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Jeanette Winterson |
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57c6107
|
I have noticed that doing the sensible thing is only a good idea when the decision is quite small. For the life-changing things you must risk it. And here is the shock- when you risk it, when you do the right thing, when you arrive at the borders of common sense and cross into unknown territory, leaving behind you all the familiar smells and lights; then you do not experience great joy and huge energy. You are unhappy. Things get worse. It ..
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Jeanette Winterson |
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5642d27
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Nothing has an unlikely quality. It is heavy.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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4a64e18
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I noticed a woman whose face was a sea voyage I had not the courage to attempt.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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7f2e4c1
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Autobiography is not important. Authenticity is important. The writer must fire herself through the text, be the molten stuff that welds together disparate elements. I believe there is always exposure, vulnerability, in the writing process, which is not to say it is either confessional or memoir. Simply, it is real.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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d8a61d0
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I've lived my life like a serial killer; finish with one part, strangle it and move on to the next. Life in neat little boxes is life in neat little coffins, the dead bodies of the past laid out side by side. I am discovering, now, in the late afternoon of the day, that the dead still speak.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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9f490fd
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I had been taught to look for monsters and devils and I found ordinary people.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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e9e7510
|
The tamer my love, the farther away it is from love. In fierceness, in heat, in longing, in risk, I find something of love's nature. In my desire for you, I burn at the right temperature to walk through love's fire. So when you ask me why I cannot love you more calmly, I answer that to love you calmly is not to love you at all.
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passion
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Jeanette Winterson |
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d19f0f1
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It is not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between them.
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jeanette winterson |
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81b556e
|
Now that physics is proving the intelligence of the universe what are we to do about the stupidity of mankind? I include myself. I know that the earth is not flat but my feet are. I know that space is curved but my brain has been condoned by habit to grow in a straight line. What I call light is my own blend of darkness. What I call a view is my hand-painted trompe-l'oeil. I run after knowledge like a ferret down a ferret hole. My limitatio..
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truth
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Jeanette Winterson |
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698e3ca
|
Names are still magic; even Sharon, Karen, Darren, and Warren are magic to somebody somewhere. In fairy stories, naming is knowledge. When I know your name, I can call your name, and when I call your name, you'll come to me.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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5f2c8e8
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If we had the courage to love we would not so value these acts of war.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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cd49319
|
This is where the story starts, in this threadbare room. The walls are exploding. The windows have turned into telescopes. Moon and stars are magnified in this room. The sun hangs over the mantelpiece. I stretch out my hand and reach the corners of the world. The world is bundled up in this room. Beyond the door, where the river is, where the roads are, we shall be. We can take the world with us when we go and sling the sun under your arm. ..
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Jeanette Winterson |
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a403f8f
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I do not accept that life has an ordinary shape, or that there is anything ordinary about life at all. We make it ordinary, but it is not.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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e09768f
|
This hole in my heart is in the shape of you. No one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?
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Jeanette Winterson |
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c4eced7
|
In this life you have to be your own hero. By that I mean you have to win whatever it is that matters to you by your own strength and in your own way. Like it or not, you are alone in a forest, just like all those fairy tales that begin with a hero who's usually stupid but somehow brave, or who might be clever, but weak as a straw, and away he goes (don't worry about the gender), cheered on by nobody, via the castles and the bears, and the ..
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Jeanette Winterson |
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fa0fff6
|
We are lucky, even the worst of us, for daylight comes.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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4e24b78
|
This is not a love story, but love is in it. That is, love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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74d2eaa
|
Do all lovers feel helpless and valiant in the presence of the beloved? Helpless because the need to roll over like a pet dog is never far away. Valiant because you know you would slay a dragon with a pocket knife if you had to.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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7a77939
|
There is a certain seductiveness about dead things. You can ill treat, alter and recolour what's dead. It won't complain.
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death
science
life
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Jeanette Winterson |
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2cda8b6
|
It's better to think of my life like that-- part miracle, part madness. It's better if I accept that I can't control any of the things that matter. My life is a trail of shipwrecks and set-sails. There are no arrivals, no destinations; there are only sandbanks and shipwreck; then another boat, another tide.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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d555fa7
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It doesn't have to be like that but mostly it is.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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352752d
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Fragile creatures of a small blue planet, surrounded by light years of silent space.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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7649f81
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If you should leave me, my heart will turn to water and flood away.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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f238f09
|
As it is, I can't settle, I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me. There are many forms of love and affection, some people spend their whole lives together without knowing each other's names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on t..
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Jeanette Winterson |
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5daa78f
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You were in my arms for the first time, and you said my name, 'Tristan.' I answered you: 'Isolde.' Isolde. The world became a word.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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7e82ef2
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There are two facts that all children need to disprove sooner or later; mother and father. If you go on believing in the fiction of your own parents, it is difficult to construct any narrative of your own.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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e37823e
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I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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a9960fd
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The ancients believed in Fate because they recognized how hard it is for anyone to change anything. The pull of past and future is so strong that the present is crushed by it. We lie helpless in the force of patterns inherited and patterns re-enacted by our own behavior. The burden is intolerable.
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fate
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Jeanette Winterson |
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948be97
|
Where did love begin? What human being looked at another and saw in their face the forests and the sea? Was there a day, exhausted and weary, dragging home food, arms cut and scarred, that you saw yellow flowers and, not knowing what you did, picked them because I love you? In the fossil record of our existence, there is no trace of love. You cannot find it held in the earth's crust, waiting to be discovered. The long bones of our ancestors..
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Jeanette Winterson |
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2c5a04c
|
Islands are metaphors of the heart, no matter what poet says otherwise.
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metaphor
sexing-the-cherry
jeanette-winterson
poet
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Jeanette Winterson |
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4e901ac
|
I feel in colour, strong tones that I hue down for the comfort of the pastelly inclined. Beige and magnolia and a hint of pink are what the well-decorated heart is wearing; who wants my blood red and vein-blue?
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Jeanette Winterson |
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acb2cc6
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I'm telling you stories. Trust me.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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d8b3202
|
If you think about something for long enough,' she explained, `more than likely, that thing will happen.' She tapped her head. `It's all in the mind.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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66bdbd0
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I felt like a seed in a pomegranate. Some say that the pomegranate was the real apple of Eve, fruit of the womb, I would eat my way into perdition to taste you.
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Jeanette Winterson |
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fba3385
|
Earth is ancient now, but all knowledge is stored up in her. She keeps a record of everything that has happened since time began. Of time before time, she says little, and in a language that no one has yet understood. Through time, her secret codes have gradually been broken. Her mud and lava is a message from the past. Of time to come, she says much, but who listens?
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nature
environmentalism
geology
|
Jeanette Winterson |
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75e274f
|
Don't you think it's strange that life, described as so rich and full, a camel-trail of adventure, should shrink to this coin-sized world? A head on one side, a story on the other. Someone you loved and what happened. That's all there is when you dig in your pockets. The most significant thing is someone else's face. What else is embossed on your hands but her?
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Jeanette Winterson |