“When I was small and easily wounded books were my carapace. If I were recalled to my hurts in the middle of a book they somehow mattered less. My corporeal life was slight the dazzling one in my head was what really mattered. Returning to books was coming home.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Amor animi arbitrio sumitu, non ponitur; we choose to love; we do not choose to cease loving.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Even still, we run. We have not reached our average of 57.92 years without knowing that you run through it, and it hurts and you run through it some more, and if it hurts worse, you run through it even more, and when you finish, you will have broken through. In the end, when you are done, and stretching, and your heartbeat slows, and your sweat dries, if you've run through the hard part, you will remember no pain.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“...no genius, I am a girl who knows too much to know anything at all...”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“we need a mass of ancestors at our backs as ballast. Sometimes, we feel it's impossible to push into the future without such a weight behind us, without such heaviness to keep us steady, even if it is imaginary. And the more frightening the future is, the more complicated it seems to be, the more we steady ourselves with the past.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“...right now, right now, I am strange. It is strange. This life is strange. For now, only for now, I am happy.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“It was somehow clear, even then, that the monster had been lonely. The folds above its eye made the old face look wistful, and it emanated such a strong sense of solitude that each human standing in the park that day felt miles from the others, though we were shoulder-to-shoulder, touching.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Then, when we had done so, we put our hands upon the freezing cold monster, our monster. And this is what we felt: vertigo, an icicle through our strong hearts, our long-lost childhoods. Sunshine in a field and crickets and the sweet tealeaf stink of a new ball mitt and a rock glinting with mica and a chaw of bubblegum wrapping in sweet sweet tendrils down our throats and the warm breeze up our shorts and the low vibrato of lake loons and the sun and the sun and the warm sun and this is what we felt; the sun.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“A man living in a place that doesn't change doesn't expect it ever will.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“...all I'm saying is that worrying about it isn't going to fix anything. The only thing we can do is keep on with our own small thing and try hard to be good and to make life better, and know that if it all ends tomorrow that we were at least happy.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“The writing seemed like the books that held it; crumbly and antique and bearing the stink of centuries. Still, it was compelling. His voice was smooth and kind, and once in a while an observation that would ring so true it vibrated like flicked crystal.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“And this was what we felt: vertigo, an icicle through our strong hearts, our long-lost childhoods. Sunshine in a field and crickets and the sweet tealeaf stink of a new ball mitt and a rock glinting with mica and a chaw of bubblegum wrapping its sweet tendrils down our throats and the warm breeze up our shorts and the low vibrato of lake loons and the sun and the sun and the warm sun and this is what we felt; the sun.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“In the far reaches of the county, cottages were found with skeletons enlaced in the beds, the bones of the baby in the kettle.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“And as I walked, I believed myself to be an Adam setting foot in a new Eden, sinless and wild-eyed, my sinews still stiff with creation.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Publilius Syrus come to me: Amor animi arbitrio sumitur, non ponitur; we choose to love; we do not choose to cease loving.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“...sick, my brothers are sending me home. This place infects me. Templeton my smooth little pill... such images I have. Such voices, that high voice, the little girl's so naughty, talking to me, all the time now. How I hate her... the train is empty, Albany a small, spangled fish... this train is all brown velvet... the train slows, I am in Templeton, oh. Templeton, Templeton, the train says, slowing down. The lake, the blue, is an embrace.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Little Sally is beheading daisies on the drive... couldn't be more eloquent if she could speak...”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“As I touched the beast I remembered how, even on that long-ago night, I could feel a tremendous thing moving in the depths below me, something vast and white and singing.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“When I was small and easily wounded, books were my carapace. If I were recalled to my hurts in the middle of a book, they somehow mattered less. My corporeal life was slight; the dazzling one in my head was what really mattered. Returning to books was coming home. So,”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“My Templeton is to Cooperstown as a shadow is to the tree that spawned it; an outline that takes texture from the ground it falls on.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“But it’s not just me, you know. The whole world’s sad,” I said. “It’s like a virus. It’s going to end badly. Glaciers melting, ozone depleted. Terrorists blowing up buildings, nuclear rods infecting the aqueducts. Influenza hopping from the pigeons to the humans, killing millions. Billions. People rotting in the street. The sun bursting open, shattering us eight minutes later. If not that, starvation. Cannibalism. Freakish mutated babies with eyeballs in their navels. It’s a terrible place to bring a child into,” I said. “This world. It is terrible. Just terrible.” I”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Now, don't sigh for envy at my week-end; I am sure it is to be dull, my dear, and you know my horrible shyness and how I loathe such things. If only I had your vivacity and beauty! Alas, what we love in others does not always suit ourselves. I shall get through the weekend by wishing you in my place.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“That's how it went, the gentle ones died quiet while the mean ones thrived. Sickened me unto death all my life.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Even still, we run. We have not reached our average of 57.92 years without knowing that you run through it, and it hurts worse, you run through it even more, and when you finish, you will have broken through. In the end, when you are done, and stretching, and your heartbeat slows, and your sweat dries, if you've run through the hard part, you will remember no pain.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“When I was small and easily wounded, books were my carapace. If I were recalled to my hurts in the middle of a book, they somehow mattered less. My corporeal life was slight; the dazzling one in my head was what really mattered. Returning to books was coming home.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Until I talked to Primus Dwyer, I wouldn’t decide anything on the Lump,”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
Lauren Groff
Born place: in Cooperstown, New York, The United States
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“Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded –with what caution –with what foresight –with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it –oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly –very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! –would a madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously –oh, so cautiously –cautiously (for the hinges creaked) –I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights –every night just at midnight –but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings
“But it’s up to us …’ he said softly. ‘It’s up to us not to lose this”
― Rainbow Rowell, quote from Eleanor & Park
“Nobody's talking to me, but nobody's hassling me either. I guess you can't have everything.”
― Beatrice Sparks, quote from Go Ask Alice
“Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book
“If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow.”
― Jane Austen, quote from Mansfield Park
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