21 Quotes by Frances de Pontes Peebles

Fame is longing. Not yours, but the audience’s. A star is nothing more, nothing less, than the public face of private desire.

Exile and fame have similar side effects: if you experience either one, your world is made narrow, and the only people can bear – the only ones who truly understand you – are the ones who are in the same boat.

Her beauty was not a physical trait. Her beauty was an influence you fell under - like a stiff drink or a line of sweet flour - infusing you with bravery and wit and affability that you never knew existed inside of yourself until she coaxed it out.

People who attribute success to luck have never truly been successful. Luck may place an opportunity in your lap, but only a constant, obsessive attention transforms that opportunity into some kind of meaningful success.

Beyond that kitchen and those cane fields was a world of possibilities that I could not fathom, but wanted to. I was awed by the avarice of that cane fire. It was beautiful in its constant need, in its unbridled hunger. I watched it burn, its heat pounding against my skin, and knew that we were alike, that fire and me. We wanted more than we’d been given, and we always would.

If passion is deeply entwined with uncertainty, then a mother’s love is the opposite: it never wavers, never depends on performance, never requires an equal amount of love in return. You have the luxury of brushing off a mother’s love, knowing your scorn or indifference will never make it go away. It is like air – you can forget it exists, and that it is essential to your life.

Being a woman is always a performance; only the very old and very young are allowed to bow out of it.

Her beauty was not a physical trait. Her beauty was an influence you fell under – like a stiff drink or a line of sweet flour – infusing you with bravery and wit and affability that you never knew existed inside of yourself until she coaxed it out.

But life isn’t as orderly as a story or a song; it does not always begin and end at compelling points.