reading is not a passive act. It's a creative act. It's a relationship between the writer and a person the writer will probably never meet. I think it's very wrong to write in a way that leaves no room for the reader to maneuver. I don't want to get in the way. What I'd really like to do is to perform the Indian Rope Trick - go higher and higher and eventually disappear.
Jeanette WintersonI struggled in my mind with all kinds of defenses. Should I be hurt? Surprised? Should I laugh it off? I wanted to say something cruel to expiate my anger and to justify myself. But it's difficult with old friends; difficult because it's so easy. You know one another as well as lovers do and you have had less to pretend about. I poured myself a drink and shrugged. 'Nothing's perfect.
Jeanette WintersonWhere did love begin?What human being looked at another and saw in their face the forests and the sea? Was there a day, exhausted and weary,dragging home food, arms cut and scarred, that you saw yellow flowers and, not knowing what you did, picked them because I love you? In the fossil record of our existence, there is no trace of love. You cannot find it held in the earth's crust, waiting to be discovered. The long bones of our ancestors show nothing of their hearts.
Jeanette WintersonWhen 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.
Jeanette WintersonWhat would it have meant to be happy? What would it have meant if things had been bright, clear, good between us?
Jeanette WintersonTwo hundred miles from the surface of the earth there is no gravity. The laws of motion are suspended. You could turn somersaults slowly slowly, weight into weightlessness, nowhere to fall. As you lay on your back paddling in space you might notice your feet had fled your head. You are stretching slowly slowly, getting longer, your joints are slipping away from their usual places. There is no connection between your shoulder and your arm. You will break up bone by bone, fractured from who you are, drifting away now, the centre cannot hold.
Jeanette Winterson