419 Quotes by Sally Rooney

I had wanted Melissa to take an interest in me and I was’t even sure I liked her. I didn’t have the option not to take her seriously, because she had published a book, which proved that lots of other people took her seriously even if I didn’t. At twenty-one, I had no achievements or possessions that proved I was a serious person.

She eats this exact breakfast regularly. Lately she has started to eat it slowly, in lavish sugary mouthfuls that congeal around her teeth. The more slowly she eats, and the more consideration she gives to the composition of her food, the less hungry she feels. She won’t eat again until eight or nine in the evening.

Do I sometimes hurt and harm myself, do I abuse the unearned cultural privilege of whiteness, do I take the labor of others for granted, have I sometimes exploited a reductive iteration of gender theory to avoid serious moral engagement, do I have a troubled relationship with my body, yes. Do I want to be free of pain and therefore demand that others also live free of pain, the pain that is mine and therefore also theirs, yes, yes.

When I read the bible I picture you as Jesus.

I was aware of the fact that he could pretend to be anyone he wanted to be, and I wondered if he also lacked a “real personality” the same way I did.

You live through certain things before you understand them. You can’t always take the analytical position.

Connell wished he knew how other people conducted their private lives, so that he could copy from example.

Things matter to me more than they do to normal people, I thought. I need to relax and let things go. I should experiment with drugs.

It feels intellectually unserious to concern himself with fictional people marrying one another. But there it is: literature moves him. One of his professors calls it “the pleasure of being touched by great art.” In those words it almost sounds sexual.