87 Quotes by Sarah Manguso

It was a failure of my imagination that made me keep leaving people. All I could see in the world were beginnings and endings: moments to survive, record, and, once recorded, safely forget. I knew I was getting somewhere when I began losing interest in the beginnings and the ends of things. Short tragic love stories that had once interested me no longer did. What interested me was the kind of love to which the person dedicates herself for so long, she no longer remembers quite how it began.

Inner beauty can fade, too.

Some people care most about exhibiting how much they care.

Failure is good preparation for success, which comes as a pleasant surprise, but success is poor preparation for failure.

Who seems a harmless fool to those above him is a malevolence to those beneath.

I read sad stories to inoculate myself against grief. I watch action movies to identify with the quick-witted heroes. Both the same fantasy: I’ll escape the worst of it.

I’d never have guessed which people I’d still know by now.

Those who claim to write about something larger and more significant than the self sometimes fail to comprehend the dimensions of self.

Time punishes us by taking everything, but it also saves us – by taking everything.