Quotes from Passing

Nella Larsen ·  122 pages

Rating: (14.1K votes)


“The trouble with Clare was, not only that she wanted to have her cake and eat it too, but that she wanted to nibble at the cakes of other folk as well.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“It hurt. It hurt like hell. But it didn’t matter, if no one knew.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“Everything can't be explained by some general biological phrase.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“I feel like the oldest person in the world with the longest stretch of life before me.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“Well, what of it? If sex isn’t a joke, what is it”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing



“And yet she hadn't the air of a woman whose life had been touched by uncertainty or suffering. Pain, fear, and grief were things that left their mark on people. Even love, that exquisite torturing emotion, left its subtle traces on the countenance.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“She isn't stupid. She's intelligent enough in a purely feminine way. Eighteenth-century France would have been a marvellous setting for her, or the old South if she hadn't made the mistake of being born a Negro.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“But she did not look the future in the face. She wanted to feel nothing, to think nothing; simply to believe that it was all silly invention on her part. Yet she could not. Not quite.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“She wished to find out about this hazardous business of “passing,” this breaking away from all that was familiar and friendly to take one’s chance in another environment, not entirely strange, perhaps, but certainly not entirely friendly.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“I'm not such an idiot that I don't realize that if a man calls me a nigger it's his fault the first time, but mine if he has the opportunity to do it again.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing



“The trouble with Clare was not only that she wanted to have her cake and eat it too but that she wanted to nibble at the cakes of other folk as well.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“Money's awfully nice to have. In
fact, all things considered, I think, 'Rene, that
it's even worth the price.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“she regarded with an astonishment that had in it a mild degree of amusement the violence of the feelings which it stirred in her.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


“She laughed and the ringing bells in her laugh had a hard metallic sound.”
― Nella Larsen, quote from Passing


About the author

Nella Larsen
Born place: in Chicago, Illinois, The United States
Born date April 13, 1891
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Popular quotes

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― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki


“¿No podríamos seguir siendo amigos?... -Seguro que muere un hada cada vez que en algún lugar del mundo se formula esta pregunta.”
― Kerstin Gier, quote from Emerald Green


“Well, that’s because they’re wrong and I’m right. No more reading for you. Let’s go get some ice cream.”

“I don’t know if the kitchen has any,” Joel said. “It’s hard to get in the summers, and—”

“Not from the kitchen, stupid,” Melody said, rolling her eyes. “From the parlor out on Knight Street.”

“Oh. I’ve … never been there.”

“What! That’s a tragedy.”

“Melody, everything is a tragedy to you.”

“Not having ice cream,” she proclaimed, “is the culmination of all disasters! That’s it. No more discussion. We’re going. Follow.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Rithmatist


“Laia is curled in a ball on the other, one hand on her armlet, fast asleep.
"You are my temple", I murmur as I knee beside her. "You are my priest. You are my prayer. You are my release."- Elias”
― Sabaa Tahir, quote from A Torch Against the Night


“The essence of this knowledge was the ability to `see all' and to `know all'. Was this not precisely the ability Adam and Eve acquired after eating the forbidden fruit, which grew on the branches of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil'? · Finally, just as Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden, so were the four First Men of the Popol Vuh deprived of their ability to `see far'. Thereafter `their eyes were covered and they could only see what was close ...' Both the Popol Vuh and Genesis therefore tell the story of mankind's fall from grace. In both cases, this state of grace was closely associated with knowledge, and the reader is left in no doubt that the knowledge in question was so remarkable that it conferred godlike powers on those who possessed it. The Bible, adopting a dark and muttering tone of voice, calls it `the knowledge of good and evil' and has nothing further to add. The Popol Vuh is much more informative. It tells us that the knowledge of the First Men consisted of the ability to see `things hidden in the distance', that they were astronomers who `examined the four corners, the four points of the arch of the sky', and that they were geographers who succeeded in measuring `the round face of the earth'. 7 Geography is about maps. In Part I we saw evidence suggesting that the cartographers of an as yet unidentified civilization might have mapped the planet with great thoroughness at an early date. Could the Popol Vuh be transmitting some garbled memory of that same civilization when it speaks nostalgically of the First Men and of the miraculous geographical knowledge they possessed? Geography is about maps, and astronomy is about stars. Very often the two disciplines go hand in hand because stars are essential for navigation on long sea-going voyages of discovery (and long sea-going voyages of discovery are essential for the production of accurate maps). Is it accidental that the First Men of the Popol Vuh were remembered not only for studying `the round face of the earth' but for their contemplation of `the arch of heaven'?”
― Graham Hancock, quote from Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization


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