29 Quotes by Maggie Shipstead

"My brother, an artist, said what he wished to convey in his paintings was a sense of infinite space. He knew this task to be impossible, as, even if a canvas could accommodate such a concept, our minds seem incapable of grasping it. But he said he believed, most of the time, that an unachievable intention was the worthiest kind.[Marian Graves]"

"I think of a seeker as someone looking for enlightenment. I mean searcher as something more open-ended, someone who's actively trying to find their way.[Vanity Fair reporter, to Hadley Baxter]"

"One thing I've learned is that you don't just love a person, you love a vision of your life with them. And then you have to mourn both.[Jamie Graves]"

"Circles are wondrous because they are endless. Anything endless is wondrous. But endlessness is torture, too.[Marian Graves]"

"Memory is a drop caught in a flask, concentrated and briny, nothing like the fresh abundance from which it came.[Marian Graves]"

"...people's lives don't get preserved like fossils. The best you can hope for is that time will have hardened around someone's memory, preserving a void in their shape.[Hadley Baxter]"

"People's wishes for their own lives tend to outweigh others' ideas about how they should behave.[Mrs. Fahey]"

"We must bend in the wind sometimes.... So much is beyond our control.[Mrs. Fahey]"

"You don't really get it before it happens--how you always miss some people, you know?[Joey Kamaka]"

"We think each new romantic prospect, each new lover, is a fresh start, but really we're just tacking into the wind, each new trajectory determined by the last, plotting a jagged yet unbroken line of reactions through our lives.[Hadley Baxter]"