Quotes from The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life's Work at 72

“Is being burnt a requisite for the making of art? Personally, I don't think it is. But art is poultice for a burn. It is a privilege to have, somewhere within you, a capacity for making something speak from your own seared experience.”
― Molly Peacock, quote from The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life's Work at 72

“But if a role model in her seventies isn't layered with contradictions - as we all come to be - then what good is she? Why bother to cut the silhouette of another's existence and place it against our own if it isn't as incongruous, ambiguous, inconsistent, and paradoxical as our own lives are?”
― Molly Peacock, quote from The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life's Work at 72

“The secret of marriage is thinking that your partner is better than yourself.”
― Molly Peacock, quote from The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life's Work at 72

“Having a collection, taking it out, looking at it, reordering it, and putting it away is creative in itself. It doesn't yield a product, like the results of an art, but is stops time, as making art does.”
― Molly Peacock, quote from The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life's Work at 72

“Robert Phelps, a biographer of Colette, said about watching, 'Along with love and work, this is the third great salvation. For whenever someone is seriously watching, a form of lost innocence is restored. It will not last, but during those minutes his self-consciousness is relieved.' Noticing keeps you alive.”
― Molly Peacock, quote from The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life's Work at 72

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“Because I kissed you? Seriously? You only like me because I’m a good kisser? That’s it. We’re not doing this. I’m not letting you risk your life just
because you can’t think with your upstairs brain.”
“No, you twit.” Ryan laughed. “Because you kissed me that day. I expected the ice queen and got a funny, go-with-the-flow girl that didn’t care what
anyone thought about her. A girl willing to stir up gossip just so that I could win a date with someone else.
“You didn’t have to help me. In fact, you probably should have been insulted, but you weren’t.
You kissed me, you smiled, and then you wished me good luck. No one’s ever surprised me like that. I couldn’t figure out why you did it, and I just
had to get to know you after that.” I had no idea that stupid kiss had that kind of effect on him. Charged him up like a battery, sure, but do all that? All
this time I really thought it was just the superkissing that kept him coming back. I looked down at my lunch, feeling a little ashamed of my lack of faith
in him, but Ryan couldn’t stop there.
Oh, no, not Ryan Miller.
“After that day, every time I was with you I got brief glimpses of the real Jamie, the one who is dying to break out, and she was this fun, relaxed,
smart, funny, caring girl. Finding out the truth about you only made you that much more incredible. You’re so strong. You’ve gone through so much,
you’re going through so much, but you never stop trying. You’re amazing.” I was surprised when I felt Ryan’s hand lift my chin up. I didn’t want to look
at him, I knew what would happen to my heart if I did, but I couldn’t stop myself. I craved him too much.
When we made eye contact, his face lit up and he whispered, “I love you, Jamie Baker.” It came out of nowhere, and it stole the breath from me,
leaving me speechless. Ryan stared at me, just waiting for some kind of reaction, and then I was the one who broke the no-kissing rule.
It wasn’t my fault. He totally cheated! Like anyone could resist Ryan Miller when he’s touching your face and saying he loves you?
I threw myself at him so fast that I startled him for a change, and he was the one who had to pull me off him when his hair started to stick up.
“Sorry,” I breathed as he pulled away.
“Don’t be sorry,” he teased. “Just stop.”
“Sorry,” I said again when I noticed that his leg was now bouncing under the table.
“Yeah. Looks like I don’t get to sleep through economics today.”
“On the bright side, Coach could make you run laps all practice long and you’d be fine.”
― Kelly Oram, quote from Being Jamie Baker

“They’re Americans when they win races, and when they get conscripted into the army,’ Dave said. ‘But they’re Negroes when they want to buy the house next door to yours.”
― Ken Follett, quote from Edge of Eternity

“O desfecho deste episódio da crônica itaguaiense é de tal ordem, e tão inesperado, que merecia nada menos de dez capítulo de exposição; mas contento-me com um que será o remate da narrativa, e um dos mais belos exemplos de convicção científica e abnegação humana.”
― Machado de Assis, quote from O Alienista

“It doesn't matter if it could be worse, because even those people living on the street could still say 'it's not as bad as it could be.' You still feel the pain. It still matters. All this means nothing unless you have people around who understand you. People who get that, sometimes, you're just...really, really fucking sad and it's for no reason at all. Then you get pissed off 'cause you realize you're upset without a good reason, and you feel even worse.”
― Kelley York, quote from Suicide Watch

“WHY in the world would MacKenzie ask ME to vote for HER for Sweetheart Princess when it’s so obvious that she HATES my guts?!”
― Rachel Renée Russell, quote from Dork Diaries Book 6: Tales from a Not-So-Happy Heartbreaker

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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