Quote

Know thyself,’ said Socrates. Know thyself,’ said Sappho, ‘and make sure that the Church never finds out.

Jeanette Winterson

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Jeanette Winterson
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: August 27
Author
Film Producer
Journalist
Novelist
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Short Story Writer
Writer
Manchester
England
Never
Sappho
Socrates
Thyself
Finds
Sure
Church
Make

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I am a writer who happens to love women. I am not a lesbian who happens to write.
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Y'know, Nature's unpredictable -- that's why we had to tame her. Maybe we went too far, but in principle we made the right decision.
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You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play. It’s the playing that’s irresistible. Dicing from one year to the next with the things you love, what you risk reveals what you value.
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In the presence of love, hearth and quest become one.
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Only a fool tries to reconstruct a bunch of grapes from a bottle of wine.
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The only selfish life is a timid one.
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When we say we can pull resources away from libraries, from culture, from those parts of the education system that are not about utility, what we are really saying is that the life of the mind is unnecessary.
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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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If you continually write and read yourself as a fiction, you can change what's crushing you.
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She hated being a nobody and like all children, adopted or not, I have had to live out some of her unlived life. We do that for our parents - we don't really have any choice.
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You said, 'I love you.' Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear?
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Her butler opened it for her. His name was Boredom. She said, 'Boredom, fetch me a plaything.' He said 'Very good ma'am,' and putting on his white gloves so that fingerprints would not show he tapped at my heart and I thought he said his name was Love.
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Your weak point is the open, vulnerable place where you can always be hurt. Love, in all its aspects, opens the self so fully.
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Art can make a difference because it pulls people up short. It says, don't accept things for their face value you don't have to go along with any of this you can think for yourself.
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I was happy but happy is an adult word. You don't have to ask a child about happy, you see it. They are or they are not. Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. Talking about it is the same as trying to catch the wind. Much easier to let it blow all over you.
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When I look at my life I realise that the mistakes I have made, the things I really regret, were not errors of judgement but failures of feeling.
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Don't regret your life, child, it will pass soon enough.
Jeanette Winterson
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He doubted her. You must never doubt the one you love. But they might not be telling the truth. Never mind that. You tell them the truth. What do you mean? You can't be another person's honesty, child, but you can be your own. So what should I say? When? When I love someone? You should say it.
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The universe has no sides, no end, can't be mapped. Enough to make a man talk about God, make a man superstitious and worship an idol. The science never gets as far as the strangeness.
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Every word written is a net to catch the word that has escaped.
Jeanette Winterson