1,104 Quotes by Jeanette Winterson

I realised something important: whatever is on the outside can be taken away at any time. Only what is inside you is safe.

I keep myself locked as a box when it matters, and broken open when it doesn't matter at all.

To me, these days will never end. I am always there, in that room with her, or if not I, the imprint of myself - my fossil-love

There is still a popular fantasy, long since disproved by both psychoanalysis and science, and never believed by any poet or mystic, that it is possible to have a thought without a feeling. It isn’t. When we are objective we are subjective too. When we are neutral we are involved. When we say ‘I think’ we don’t leave our emotions outside the door. To tell someone not to be emotional is to tell them to be dead.

Any measurement must take into account the position of the observer. There is no such thing as measurement absolute, there is only measurement relative.

I didn't want to be in the teeming mass of the working class.[...] I didn't want to live and die in the same place with only a week at the seaside in between. I dreamed of escape - but what is terrible about industrialisation is that it makes escape necessary. In a system that generates masses, individualism is the only way out. But then what happens to community - to society?

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.

The key to happiness ... is tolerance of those who do not do as you do.

The best language is always found in books because it's considered. It's a high language. Sometimes, it is complex and difficult. It's empowering and offers a way to speak about yourself that you don't have if all you are doing is reading the newspaper and watching TV.