Quotes by Jeanette Winterson

"You are the door in the rock that finally swings free when moonlight shines on it.  You are the door at the top of the stairs that only appears in dreams.  You are the door that sets the prisoner free.  You are the carved low door into the Chapel of the Grail.  You are the door at the edge of the world.  You are the door that opens onto a sea of stars."  (Character Silver describes her lover)

"It's better to think of my life like that-- part miracle, part madness.  It's better if I accept that I can't control any of the things that matter.  My life is a trail of shipwrecks and set-sails.  There are no arrivals, no destinations, there are only sandbanks and shipwreck; then another boat, another tide. 

"You can't be another person's honesty, child, but you can be your own."

When we let ourselves respond to poetry, to music, to pictures, we are clearing a space where new stories can root, in effect we are clearing a space for new stories about ourselves.

I am telling you stories. Trust me...

Gambling is not a vice, it is an expression of our humanness. We gamble. Some do it at the gaming table, some do not. You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play.

What you risk reveals what you value.

The secret of the world is this: the world is entirely circular and you will go round and round endlessly, never finding what you want, unless you have found what you really want inside yourself. When you follow a star you know you will never reach that star; rather it will guide you to where you want to go. It's a reference point, not an end in itself, even though you seem to be following it. So it is with the world. It will only ever lead you back to yourself. The end of all your exploring will be to cease from exploration and know the place for the first time.

We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much. And still we long to feel.

Of course that is not the whole story, but that is the way with stories; we make them what we will. It's a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it's a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing it into time. Everyone who tells a story tells it differently, just to remind us that everybody sees it differently. Some people say there are true things to be found, some people say all kinds of things can be proved. I don't believe them. The only thing for certain is how complicated it all is, like string full of knots. It's all there but hard to find the beginning and impossible to fathom the end. The best you can do is admire the cat's cradle, and maybe knot it up a bit more. History should be a hammock for swinging and a game for playing, the way cats play. Claw it, chew it, rearrange it and at bedtime it's still a ball of string full of knots. Nobody should mind. Some people make a lot of money out of it. Publishers do well, people make a lot of money out of it. Publishers do well, children, when bright, can come top. It's an all-purpose rainy day pursuit, this reducing of stories called history.