“True enough,” said Mrs. Copperfield, bringing her fist down on the table and looking very mean. “I have gone to pieces, which is a thing I’ve wanted to do for years. I know I am as guilty as I can be, but I have my happiness, which I guard like a wolf, and I have authority now and a certain amount of daring, which, if you remember correctly, I never had before.”
― Jane Bowles, quote from Two Serious Ladies
“..it is against my entire code, but then, I have never even begun to use my code, although I judge everything by it.”
― Jane Bowles, quote from Two Serious Ladies
“What makes me happy I seem to catch out of the sky with both hands; I only hold whatever it is that I love because that is all I can really see.”
― Jane Bowles, quote from Two Serious Ladies
“I didn't tell her because I wanted the buildings to stay in place for her and i wanted the stars to be over her head and not cockeyed--I wanted her to be able to walk in the park and feed the birdies in years to come with some other fine human being hanging onto her arm. I didn't want her to have to lock something up inside of her and look out at the world through a nailed window.”
― Jane Bowles, quote from Two Serious Ladies
“I don't judge people by their bodies. Even when I was a young girl I liked men for their minds. Now that I'm middle-aged I see how right I was.”
― Jane Bowles, quote from Two Serious Ladies
“Even then she wore the look of certain fanatics who think of themselves as leaders without once having gained the respect of a single human being.”
― Jane Bowles, quote from Two Serious Ladies
“I am less morose. I am just showing the results of the terrific fight that I have waged inside of myself, and you know that the face of victory often resembles the face of defeat.”
― Jane Bowles, quote from Two Serious Ladies
“something terrible has happened to that woman. I feel it in my heart. Please don't be bad-tempered with her.”
― Jane Bowles, quote from Two Serious Ladies
“I wanted to be a religious leader when I was young and now I just reside in my house and try not to be too unhappy. I have a friend living with me, which makes it easier.”
― Jane Bowles, quote from Two Serious Ladies
“The world and all the people in it had suddenly slipped beyond her comprehension and she felt in great danger of losing the whole world once and for all--a feeling that is difficult to explain.”
― Jane Bowles, quote from Two Serious Ladies
“But do you know," said Andy, "how beautiful and delicate a man's heart is when he is happy for the first time? It is like the thin ice that has imprisoned those beautiful young plants that are released when the ice thaws.”
― Jane Bowles, quote from Two Serious Ladies
“Mrs. Copperfield started to tremble after the girl had closed the door behind her. She trembled so violently that she shook the bed. She was suffering as much as she had ever suffered before, because she was going to do what she wanted to do. But it would not make her happy. She did not have the courage to stop from doing what she wanted to do. She knew that it would not make her happy, because only the dreams of crazy people come true. She thought that she was only interested in duplicating a dream, but in doing so she necessarily became the complete victim of a nightmare.”
― Jane Bowles, quote from Two Serious Ladies
“I always thought I should meet you. My cousin used to tell me how queer you were. I think, though, that you can make friends more quickly with queer people. Or else you don’t make friends with them at all—one way or the other.”
― Jane Bowles, quote from Two Serious Ladies
Jane Bowles
Born place: in New York, The United States
Born date February 22, 1917
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“Cross felt that at the heart of all political movements the concept of the basic inequality of man was enthroned and practiced, and the skill of politicians consisted in how cleverly they hid this elementary truth and gained votes by pretending the contrary”
― Richard Wright, quote from The Outsider
“Belief made no difference to the truth.”
― Diane Duane, quote from Deep Wizardry
“Grief was just the moment before you tied off the thread and began the next one. That was when you made your choice about what you were going to sew next.”
― Elizabeth Chadwick, quote from Lady of the English
“Pema Chodron, an ordained Buddhist nun, writes of compassion and suggests that its truest measure lies not in our service of those on the margins, but in our willingness to see ourselves in kinship with them.”
― Gregory Boyle, quote from Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion
“She came very close, and looking into my eyes, she said, “My Jenny,” and then she bent her head and kissed me—here, on the left-hand corner of my mouth. And nobody knows better than I that I couldn’t have felt anything, because Tamsin was a ghost—but nobody but me knows what I felt. And I’ll always know.”
― Peter S. Beagle, quote from Tamsin
Night Watch
Messenger
Finnikin of the Rock
The Vampire Armand
The Coincidence of C...
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