A. Manette Ansay Quotes & Sayings

One cannot exchange ideas with a rational person any more than one can argue with a religious fanatic. — A. Manette Ansay

It seems to me now that the past belongs to those who have the self-possession, or the arrogance, or enough sheer determined longing, to stamp their own particular imagination history. It was no use wondering what I would have put in this room wee it mine to fill, it never would be. I remembered Phoebe telling me, People believe what they want. But there was also this: People want to believe. And somewhere between wanting to believe and believing what we want, there is the story we call the truth. — A. Manette Ansay

Nd it occurs to me how fragile our lives are, how at any moment the sky can open and drown us, the earth can open and swallow us. I think of all the intricate ways our bodies can betray us, the accidents and the atrocities, the missteps and the misunderstandings. — A. Manette Ansay

It is a lonely thing, remembering for someone else. — A. Manette Ansay

For art is about desire, is it not, and never its consummation? — A. Manette Ansay

Each piano is unique. Each feels different beneath your hand and yields a new geography of sound. Each room or hall accepts that sound in a completely different way, and if, within that room or hall, the piano is moved, the sound will change, as it will if the hall is full of people in thick winter coats, or half full of people in light summer dresses. You must adjust your touch, your tone, your range; you must LISTEN, for even the most familiar passages can become unfamiliar, challenging, strange. — A. Manette Ansay

Religion in this country is worse than communism. Say the wrong thing, think the wrong thing and, look
there's the Stasi knocking at your door. — A. Manette Ansay

You know the one about the old man whose grandson is getting married? Just before the wedding, he calls the boy in for a chat. "My child," he says, "I want you to know that all marriages go through phases. At first, you and you wife will make love all the time. But then, as the children come along, you will find that you are having sex less and less. And by the time they are grown and gone, you'll be just like your grandmother and me. All you'll ever have is oral sex. I just wanted you to know how things will go." The boy looks at him, incredulous. "You and Grandma have oral sex?" "Every single night," the old man says, "and it's a perfectly natural thing. She goes into her bedroom and calls, 'Fuck you!' And I go into my bedroom and call back to her, 'No, fuck you! — A. Manette Ansay

I have this strange feeling none of this is really happening. Like I'm standing far away from myself. Like nothing is real. Have you ever had a feeling like that? — A. Manette Ansay

If we just had some time to ourselves, we could talk to each other the way we used to. Maybe about nothing in particular at first, but even that would be a start. — A. Manette Ansay

Infatuation is the inciting incident. Maybe it goes somewhere, maybe it doesn't, but you can't have a story without it. Love is the story itself, the thing we carry with us after the mountains are gone. — A. Manette Ansay

Oscar Wilde said that men marry because they are bored, and women because they are curious, and that both are disappointed ... He was right about the disappointment. You will be disappointed ... Not just in each other, but in yourselves. It's inevitable that you'll each fall short of your own expectations ... But you will also exceed those expectations, again and again, and in ways you can't possibly imagine. And my wish for you both is that there will come a time when you'll look back on this day and realize that - in spite of the disappointments - even the best of your old expectations seem pale in the face of the actual life you have lived together. — A. Manette Ansay

Who else but a lover retains the ability to wound the other person with such passion, such precision? And who else but that lover has the capacity to heal what he or she has done? — A. Manette Ansay