Martine Leavitt Quotes & Sayings

Susie: Doesn't it make you feel kind of awesome that the world is beautiful for no other apparent reason than that it is? Like beauty has its own secret reason. It doesn't need human eyes to notice. It just wants to be glorious and unbelievable. — Martine Leavitt

You, my lord, are the ending of all true stories. — Martine Leavitt

Had I truly thought I would not die when he kissed me? But I did. For a moment the breath and life went out of me and there was no time and no tomorrow but only my lips against his. — Martine Leavitt

Reality is just this game people play together, something their brain decides on, and the minute their brain gets iffy about reality, they realize everything they know about the world is just their own made-up version of it, and that would mean everyone is walking around in their own made-up world, all alone, and reality is just something we invent together to make us feel not so alone. It scares people when some of us check out of the game. — Martine Leavitt

Now I will tell you a true thing, child, and if you are wise you will remember it. The soul, it longs for its mate as much as the body. Sad it is that the body be greedier than the soul. But if you would be happy all your days, as I was with your grandfather, subdue the body and marry the soul. Look for a soul-and-heart love. — Martine Leavitt

His [Death] voice is cold at first, John. It seems unfeeling. But if you listen without fear, you find that when he speaks, the most ordinary words become poetry. When he stands close to you, your life becomes a song, a praise. When he touches you, your smallest talents become gold; the most ordinary loves break your heart with their beauty. — Martine Leavitt

Each man, when he dies, sees the landscape of his own soul. — Martine Leavitt

You have no dower," he said. "Live, Keturah. Go home."
"But I do have a dower," I said plainly. "This is my dower, Lord Death; the crown of flowers I will never wear at my wedding."
He knelt on one knee before me.
"The little house I would have had of my own, to furnish and clean. That, too, is part of my dower."
"I will give you the world for your footstool," he said.
"And most precious of all, I give you the wee baby I will never hold in my arms. — Martine Leavitt

Papa loves you with a dying and infernal love," the youngest girl said.
"Undying," the eldest girl corrected. "And eternal. — Martine Leavitt

The girl longed for a love that could not be ended by death. From the time she was young, she knew that her true love was there, somewhere, living a life that would one day intersect her own. Knowing this made every day full of sweet possibility. Knowing that her true love lived and breathed and went about his day under her same sun made her fears vanish, her sorrows small, and her hopes high. Though she did not yet know his face, the color of his eyes, still she knew him better than anyone else knew him, knew his hopes and dreams, what made him laugh and cry. — Martine Leavitt

Before you know what Annakey answered, you must know this: Annakey Rainsayer loved three things and feared only one thing. This makes her unusual from the beginning, for most of us love one thing - ourselves - and fear many things. Because we fear more things than we love, our lives are blown this way and that by our fears. — Martine Leavitt

Susie: Maybe we're all making everything up as we go. — Martine Leavitt

And I mean, if there is a God it's probably a good idea to believe in him. But if there isn't a God, then we're just an accident of nature, a virus, pond scum gone berserk, and it won't matter one way or another if I believe or not because who cares?
And so if it doesn't matter, then I choose to believe. There's something mindful about it, about the universe having a heart, us being watched over, maybe life and everything meaning something. — Martine Leavitt

Susie: Okay, Calvin. But you know what? You can't say, youcan'texpectanythingfrommeI'mbroken! And turn around the next minute and say, ohwoeismeeverybodytreatsmelikeI'mbroken! Which one is it? I can treat you the way I really feel, or I can treat you careful.
Me: Real. Just be real. — Martine Leavitt

How thin the air felt at the forest's edge, how ghostly the trees that guarded their realm ... The whole world seemed as delicate as a dandelion seed, and as fleeting ... How sad to know that the figment village of my imagination would not vanish when I ended, to understand that it was not I who had invented the moon the first time I realized how lovely it was. To admit that it was not my breath that made the winds blow ... [M]y heart, my heart knew that when I closed my eyes I invented the night sky and the stars too. Wasn't the whole dome of the sky the same shape as the inside of my skull? Didn't I create the sun and the day when I raised my eyelids every morning? — Martine Leavitt

I've figured out there's a difference between the meaning of the word 'real' and the meaning of the word 'true. — Martine Leavitt

Just because you see something doesn't mean it's really there. — Martine Leavitt

Tell me what it is like to die," I answered.
He dismounted from his horse, looking at me strangely the whole while. "You experience something similar every day," he said softly. "It is as familiar to you as bread and butter."
"Yes," I said. "It is like every night when I fall asleep."
"No. It is like every morning when you wake up. — Martine Leavitt

We mean you don't love any men," Gretta said in her even, matter-of-fact voice.
"You know very well that I adore all men," I said. "I have always thought them to be the dearest of things. — Martine Leavitt

Living to an extraordinary age, she mourned them all equally as she buried her husband and, one by one, her children. In this suffering she found the best sort of perfection
the kind that never demands it of others. — Martine Leavitt

Demonstrate talent, said Grandmother often to me, and you will still be loved by a husband when beauty has faded. — Martine Leavitt

Everyone stared at her, sorry for her but glad it had not happened to them. There were a few murmurs of sympathy, and a few people whispering all the reasons they thought Vilsa may have deserved what had happened. It is important to make people deserve what happens to them. If bad things can happen for no apparent reason, then bad things might happen to innocent us. — Martine Leavitt

And so he did his endless work,' I continued quietly, 'without feeling, without pity, without rest, for to open his heart to these would be to open his heart to his loneliness and longing and that was beyond bearing. — Martine Leavitt

She learned that there is a cruelty in the world. She did not yet understand that those who hurt others do so because they believe that people desire to hurt them. She did not know yet that such people suffer more than the ones they hurt, for they must live in their own skin, in a world of their own making, a world full of enemies. — Martine Leavitt

In the fall, she knew it was Death who sweetened the apples. — Martine Leavitt

She knew she had never been truly alive until she met him, and never so happy and content with her lot until she was touched by the sorrow of him. — Martine Leavitt

It is life that hurts you not death. — Martine Leavitt

If untimely death came only those who deserved that fate, Keturah, where would choice be? No one would do good for its own sake, but only to avoid an early demise. No one would speak out against evil because of his own courageous soul, but only to live another day. The right to choose is man's great gift, but one thing is not his to choose
the time and means of death. — Martine Leavitt

I have observed that you treat a man as an old garment to be taken apart and stitched again. Perhaps you could think of him as good cloth, rich fabric that wants only to be embroidered upon. And perhaps, if you will do that, you will see that you love Tailor yourself. — Martine Leavitt

These are the best reasons to do anything in life. People who say things like this are the kind of people who change the world. Who prevent the world from ending. Or at least they can change the inner world of a reader and that is a sacred power. — Martine Leavitt

When it is winter and we must walk in the blizzard snow do not our fingers and toes whisper death And when winter is at last over ... can we not hear our bellies whisper death to us In the dark don't we know And when we are paralyzed by nightmares We know what you are. With our first cries we rail against you. We see you in every drop of blood in every tear. — Martine Leavitt