A Little Life/ Quotes that Struck Pt. 1

Author: Hanya Yanagihara

1.

“JBs ambition was fueled by a lust for that future for his speedy arrival to it; Jude’s he thought was motivated more by a fear that if he didn't move forward he would somehow slip back to his past, the life he had left and about which he would tell none of them.” Page 49

2.

"But then the feeling would dissipate, and he would be left alone to scan the arts section of the paper and read about other people who were doing the kinds of things he didn't even have the expansiveness, the arrogance of imagination to dream of, and in those hours the world would feel very large, and the lake very empty, and the night very black, and he would wish he were back in Wyoming, waiting at the end of the road for Hemming, where the only path he had to navigate was the one back to his parents’ house, where the porch light washed the night with honey." Page 63

3.

"When Mareo was finished, he looked at himself in his new suit: here was such anonymity, such protection… Everything was covered, everything was hidden. If he was standing still he could be anyone, someone blank and invisible." Page 125

4.

Everything about mourning is all the same, and its all the same for a reason- because there is no real deviation from the text. Sometimes you feel more of one thing and less of another and sometimes you feel them out of order, and sometimes you feel them for a longer or shorter time. But the sensations are always the same. Page 187

5.

But sometimes it was night when everything was silent around him, and it took him longer to figure out where he was, and why he was there, although it came back to him, it always did, and unlike some realizations, it never grew easier or fuzzier with each remembrance. And sometimes it was neither day nor night but somewhere in between, and there would be something strange and dusty about the light that made him imagine for a moment that there might, after all, be such a thing as heaven and that he might, after all, have made it there. And then he would hear Andy's voice, and remember again why he was there, and want to close his eyes all over again. Page 114

6.

An elegant mind wants elegant endings, and Walter had the most elegant mind. So I wish him goodbye; I wish him the answer to the axiom he so loved.” Page 326