Nina George Quotes & Sayings

I don't know how many years it's been since I last slept with my husband. I was faithful, stupid and so awfully lonely that I'll gobble you up if you're nice to me. Or kill you because I can't bear it. — Nina George

The trouble is that so many people, most of them women, think they have to have a perfect body to be loved. But all it has to do is be capable of loving---and being loved. — Nina George

I wanted never to need anyone again. I'm such a coward. Monsieur — Nina George

There. Layer by layer, it appeared. Behind the wall of words...... — Nina George

That awful cockroach story! The mother chasing her own son away with a broom. Horrible. I was cleaning obsessively for days. Is that typical of this Monsieur Kafka?" "You've summed it up well, Madame. Some people have to study it for decades to get the meaning. — Nina George

And slowly, infinitely slowly, he began to trust. Not the sea, from from it; no one should make that mistake! — Nina George

As long as you can walk, you will find a walking stick. As long as you are brave, someone will help you. — Nina George

In the river meadows, alders, brambles and wild vines formed a magical jungle, dappled with shimmering, greenish light and spangled with twirling forest particles. Marshy pools lay sparkling among the elderberries and leaning beeches. — Nina George

Can eating heal you? With every bite of food steeped in the herbs and oils of Provence he seemed to absorb a little more of the land that lay ahead; it was as if he were eating the surrounding countryside. Already he could taste the wild banks of the Loire, covered in forests and vineyards. — Nina George

She'll be your dance partner, Jordan"
"Her? She's much too good. I'm scared!"
"Remember the feeling. Someday you'll want to write about it, and then it'll be good to know how the fear feels and to go ahead and dance all the same. — Nina George

... books are a very recent means of expression in the broad sweep of history, capable of changing the world and toppling tyrants. — Nina George

As she said this, she tossed him one of her blue-and-gray-checked tea towels to use as an apron. She was wearing a blue summer dress and tucked her towel-apron into her red belt. Today he could see that her blond hair was tinged with silver at the temples and that the former confusion and terror had left her eyes.
Soon the windowpanes had misted up; the gas flames were hissing under pots and pans; the white wine, shallots and cream sauce was simmering; and in a heavy pan the olive oil was browning potatoes sprinkled with rosemary and salt.
They were chatting away as if they'd known each other for years and had simply lost touch for a while. About Carla Bruni, and about how male sea horses carried their young around in a pouch on their stomachs. They talked about fashion and about the trend for salt with added flavorings, and of course they gossiped about their neighbors. — Nina George

these small children, listening with eyes wide and in rapt concentration, would one day grow up to need reading, with its accompanying sense of wonder and the feeling of having a film running inside your head, as much as they needed air to breathe. — Nina George

Some fathers cannot love their children. They find them annoying. Or uninteresting. Or unsettling. They're irritated by their children because they've turned out differently than they had expected. They're irritated because the children were the wife's wish to patch up the marriage when there was nothing left to patch up, her means of forcing a loving marriage where there was no love. And such fathers take it out on the children. Whatever they do, their fathers will be nasty and mean to them." "Please stop." "And the children, the delicate, little, yearning children," Perdu continued more softly, because he was terribly moved by Max's inner turmoil, "do everything they can to be loved. Everything. They think that it must somehow be their fault that their father cannot love them. But Max," and here Perdu lifted Jordan's chin, "it has nothing to do with them. — Nina George

All the love, all the dead, all the people we've known. They are the rivers that feed our sea of souls. If we refuse to remember them, that sea will dry up too. — Nina George

Books can do many things, but not everything. We have to live the important things, not read them. — Nina George

Often it's not we who shape words, but the words we use that shape us." "You're a funny bookseller, you — Nina George

Star salt (the stars' reflection in a river) Sun cradle (the sea) Lemon kiss (everyone knew exactly what this meant!) Family anchor (the dinner table) — Nina George

The man had been blind since birth, but he said that he could see the world through the fragrant trails and traces that people's feelings and thoughts had left behind. Che could sense whether a room had been loved or lived or argued in. — Nina George

He had found beneath the sorrow a place where emotion and happiness could live alongside tenderness and the realization that he was lovable after all. — Nina George

Asking questions is an art. — Nina George

Books are more than doctors, of course. Some novels are loving, lifelong companions; some give you a clip around the ear; others are friends who wrap you in warm towels when you've got those autumn blues. And some...well, some are pink candy floss that tingles in your brain for three seconds and leaves a blissful voice. Like a short, torrid love affair. — Nina George

Oh well, a second drag couldn't do any harm. — Nina George

Kitchen solace - the feeling that a delicious meal is simmering on the kitchen stove, misting up the windows, and that at any moment your lover will sit down to dinner with you and, between mouthfuls, gaze happily into your eyes. (Also known as living.)" RECIPES THE CUISINE of Provence is as diverse as its scenery: fish by the coast, vegetables in the countryside, and in the mountains lamb and a variety of staple dishes containing pulses. One region's cooking is influenced by olive oil, another's is based on wine, and pasta dishes are common along the Italian border. East kisses West in Marseilles with hints of mint, saffron and cumin, and the Vaucluse is a paradise for truffle and confectionery lovers. Yet — Nina George

A bird awoke in his chest, and it cautiously spread its wings, amazed to find that it was still alive. It wanted out. It wanted to burst from his chest, taking his heart with it, and soar up into the sky. — Nina George

Habit is a vain and treacherous goddess. She lets nothing disrupt her rule. She smothers one desire after another: the desire to travel, the desire for a better job or a new love. She stops us from living as we would like, because habit prevents us from asking ourselves whether we continue to enjoy doing what we do. — Nina George

I have already lived long enough, Manon had written in late autumn, on an autumn day like today. I have lived and loved, I have had the best of this world. Why cry over the ending? Why cling to what remains? The advantage of dying is that you stop being afraid of it. There is a sense of peacefulness too. — Nina George

It looked as though [the stars] were breathing to some never-ending slow, deep rhythm. They breathed & watched as the world came & went. ...For them, the earth was one more island world in the immeasurable ocean of outer space, its inhabitants microscopically small — Nina George

Every woman is a priestess if she loves life and can work magic on herself and those who are sacred to her. It's time for women to remind themselves of the powers they have inside. — Nina George

Anyone who's good at something is hated - or not loved in any case. — Nina George

Now. It is only ever now. So do it, you coward. Breathe underwater at last. — Nina George

He had to ask these questions and then remain absolutely silent. Listening in silence was essential to making a comprehensive scan of a person's soul. — Nina George

he didn't have the courage to trust someone again. To trust someone entirely because in love there is no other way. He — Nina George

And he had found out that if he wanted to fly, he first had to jump. — Nina George

The bookseller could not imagine what might be more practical than a book, — Nina George

books, the only remedy for countless, undefined afflictions of the soul. — Nina George

He's lost his muse, Signor Salvatore. Max made a pact with her and gave up his normal life. But his muse has gone. Now he doesn't have a life--either a normal one or an artistic one. And s he's on a quest to find her. — Nina George

It often turns out very differently to how you feared. — Nina George

Reading - an endless journey; a long, indeed never-ending journey that made one more temperate as well as more loving and kind. — Nina George

Defiance: I see a little girl in pretend armour, fighting off all the things she doesn't want to be. Well — Nina George

I ask myself: Is he or she the main character in his or her life? What is her motive? Or is she a secondary character in her own tale? Is she in the process of editing herself out of her story, because her husband, her career, her children or her job are consuming her entire text?" Max Jordan's eyes widened. "I've got about thirty thousand stories — Nina George

Sanary says that you have to travel south by water to find answers to your dreams. He says too that you find yourself again there, but only if you get lost on the way - completely lost. Through love. Through longing. Through fear. Down south they listen to the sea in order to understand that laughing and crying sound the same, and that the soul sometimes needs to cry to be happy. — Nina George

The bookseller read Catherine like a novel. She let him leaf through her and look through her story. — Nina George

The world's rulers should be forced to take a reader's license. Only when they have read five thousand - no, make that ten thousand - books will they be anywhere near qualified to understand humans and how they behave. I often felt better, no longer so bad, fake and unfaithful, when Jean read me bits where good people did nasty things out of love or necessity or their hunger for life. — Nina George

...Time had seemed infinite when she still had many years and decades ahead of her. A book waiting to be written: as a girl, that was how she had seen her future life. Now she was sixty, and the pages were blank. Infinity had passed like one long continuous day. — Nina George

Paper is patient; authors never are.) At — Nina George

There are women who only look at another woman's shoes and never at her face.
And others who always look women in the face and only occasionally at their shoes. — Nina George

Death doesn't matter
It makes no difference to life.
We will always remain what we were to each other. — Nina George

Reading makes you impudent. Oh yes, unknown father, so it does. — Nina George

nowhere her love was welcome, and through lack of use, its power had cooled and changed into hatred. It was easier to hate than to love when your love wasn't wanted. Marianne — Nina George

I need to cry some more. I'll drown if I don't...Sometimes you're swimming in unwept tears and you'll go under if you store them up inside. — Nina George

The journey is over when you begin to love, thought Jean, as the two youngsters feasted their eyes on each other. — Nina George

But it's well known that reading makes people impudent, and tomorrow's world is going to need some people who aren't shy to speak their minds, don't you think? — Nina George

A wood that smells of the sea. — Nina George

Perdu and Cuneo gaped at creatures that seemed to have sprung from Middle Earth or Winterfell. Such is the power of books. — Nina George

What a hideous life he had chosen, how painful was the loneliness he endured because he didn't have the courage to trust someone again. To trust someone entirely because in love there is no other way. — Nina George

It takes only one word to hurt a woman, a matter of seconds, one stupid, impatient blow of the crop. But winning back her trust takes years. And sometimes there isn't the time. — Nina George

Ritual of the Ashes," the Occitan prayer of the dead, which — Nina George

Incidentally, you really can scream with your heart; but it's incredibly painful. — Nina George

I don't know why we women believe that sacrificing our desires makes us more attractive to men. What on earth are we thinking? That someone who goes without her wishes deserves to be loved more than she who follows her dreams? — Nina George

Books were my friends," said Catherine, and cooled her cheek, which was red from the heat of cooking, on her wineglass. "I think I learned all my feelings from books. In them I loved and laughed and found out more than in my whole nonreading life. — Nina George

Fear transforms your body like an inept sculptor does a perfect block of stone...It's just that you're chipped away at from within, and no one sees how many splinters and layers have been taken off you. You become ever thinner and more brittle inside, until eve the slightest emotion bowls you over. One hug, and you think you're going to shatter and be lost. — Nina George

Oh, merciless freedom, you continue to overwhelm me! You demand that I challenge myself and feel ashamed, and yet continue to feel so outrageously proud to live a life full of my desires. — Nina George

Most people only ask questions so they can listen to themselves talk. Or hear something they are able to cope with, but please, nothing that might get the better of them. "Do you love me?" is one of those questions. There should be a total ban on it. — Nina George

The warmth returned, but it was the mellow, genial warmth of autumn that rejoiced at the thought of evening thunderstorms and the cool of morning, which had been sorely lacking during the searing summer months, leaving the land thirsty. The — Nina George

It was as if he had passed through a gate of fear and had realised to his surprise that behind it lay not a gaping chasm, but other doors, bright hallways and inviting rooms. — Nina George

Homesickness, for example. In his opinion there are various kinds: a desire for shelter, family nostalgia, a fear of separation or a yearning for love.
"The yearning to have something good to love soon: a place, a person, a particular bed. — Nina George

Rilke to wake up. I don't read any books in which women — Nina George

It's amazing how unimpressed people are by being loved when it doesn't fit in with their plans. Love irks them so much that they change the locks or leave without warning. — Nina George

I want to lie down and sleep, exhausted by all these puzzling, insubstantial, ridiculous, fleeting thoughts. Yes, when I feel afraid I want to go to sleep - the soul's refuge from panic. — Nina George

Otherwise he stayed in the background, a small figure in a painting, while life was played out in the foreground. However, — Nina George

Oh no, she was never elitist. She said that far too many women are the accomplices of cruel, indifferent men. They lie for these men. They lie to their own children. Because their fathers treated them exactly the same way. These women always retain some hope that love is hiding behind the cruelty, so that the anguish doesn't drive them mad. Truth is, though, Max, there's no love there. — Nina George

It's amazing how close you are to your essential self as a kid, he thought, and how far from it you drift the more you strive to be loved. — Nina George

He was overawed by her open, fearless affection. Was this why people liked friendship so much? — Nina George

At lunchtime and in the evening he read aloud to Cuneo while the latter prepared the meals. Cuneo would often request stories by women authors. "Women tell you more about the world. Men only tell you about themselves. — Nina George

Perdu recalled that when he was getting to know Manon, he had had dreams in which she turned into a female eagle. He tried to catch and tame her. He would chase her into the water because when her wings were wet, she couldn't escape. We are immortal in the dreams of our loved ones. And our dead live on after their deaths in our dreams. Dreams are the interface between the worlds, between time and space. As — Nina George

Well, if a horse refuses, you've phrased your question wrongly. It's the same with women. Don't ask them, 'Shall we go out to dinner?' Ask: 'What can I cook for you?' Can she say not to that? No, she can't. — Nina George

We debated, and he offered praise. He always wanted to know how I came up with things. No one else has ever been so intensely interested in what I think. He never wanted me to be simply "pretty" or "a good girl." His desire was for me to think, to develop internal endurance. He encouraged me in sports, challenged me to think. He helped develop my political sensibility and demanded that I respect people, cultures, and religions. I was never to assume that my truth is the only one that matters. In a sense, the way he brought me up laid the groundwork for how I'm able to see the world. Why — Nina George

I am the daughter of a tall, strong tree. My timber forms a ship, but it is anchorless, flagless. I set sail for the shade and the light; I drink the wind and forget all ports. To hell with freedom, gifted or seized; if in doubt, always endure alone. — Nina George

a book is both medic and medicine at once. — Nina George

We will always remain what we were to one another. Manon — Nina George

...having a child is like casting off your own childhood forever. It's as if it's only then that you really grasp what it means to be a man. You're scared too that all your weaknesses will be laid bare, because fatherhood demands more than you can give.... I always felt I had to earn your love, because I loved you so, so much. — Nina George

And when a horse loves us, Jeanno, we deserve that love as little as when a women does. They are superior beings to us men. When they love us, then they are being gracious, for only rarely do we give them reason to love us. I learned that your mother, and she's right. Sad to say, she's right. — Nina George

Hesse's Stage came to Perdu's mind. Most people were familiar with the first line, of course: "In all beginnings dwells a magic force..." but very few people know the ending: "For guarding us and helping us to live." And hardly anyone realized that Hesse wasn't talking about new beginnings. He meant a readiness to bid farewell. Farewell to old habits, Farwell to illusions. Farewell to a long-expired life, in which one was nothing but a husk, rustled by the occasional sigh. — Nina George

You have to dance the things you cannot explain," Perdu said under his breath.
"And you have to write the things you cannot express," the old novelist thundered. — Nina George

Instead of whispering instructions to them like you would to a horse - lie down, woman, put your harness on - you should listen to them. Listen to what they want. In fact, they want to be free and to sail across the sky. — Nina George

Beside the sleeping Max, who was curled up like a little boy, knees tucked into his chest, mouth pursed into a surprised pout, lay Sanary's Southern Lights. Perdu picked up the slim volume. Max had underlined certain sentences in pencil and jotted some questions in the margins; he had read the book as a book ought to be read. Reading - an endless journey; a long, indeed never-ending journey that made one more temperate as well as more loving and kind. Max had set out on that journey. With each book he would absorb more of the world, things and people. — Nina George

And it began when you first took a risk, failed and realized that you'd survived the failure. With that knowledge, you could risk anything. Marianne — Nina George

She loved historical novels in which women dressed as men and outgrew their limited opportunities. And — Nina George

Time. It rubs the rough edges that hurt us smooth. — Nina George

Yes, when I feel afraid I want to go to sleep - the soul's refuge from panic. But — Nina George

In the end, I'm only going next door.
To the end of the corridor, into my favorite room.
And from there, out into the garden.
And there I will become light and go wherever I want. — Nina George

All of us preserve time. We preserve the old versions of the people who have left us. And under our skin, under the layer of wrinkles and experience and laughter, we, too, are old versions of ourselves. Directly below the surface, we are our former selves: the former child, the former lover, the former daughter. — Nina George

What's the point of knowing the date of your own death? I'd spend the rest of my life out of my mind with fear. — Nina George

Tango is a truth drug. It lays bare your problems and your complexes, but also the strengths you hide from others so as not to vex them. It shows what a couple can be for each other, how they can listen to each other. People who only want to listen to themselves will hate tango. — Nina George

I'm looking for what I was capable of before... Or to be more precise, I'm trying to see whether I'm still capable of it. — Nina George

He calls books freedoms. And homes too. They preserve all the good words that we so seldom use. Leniency. Kindness. Contradiction. Forbearance. — Nina George

None of this is any less real because I am gone. Death doesn't matter. It makes no difference to life. We will always remain what we were to one another. — Nina George

Nobody would ever wise up if they hadn't at some stage been young and stupid. — Nina George

You only really get to know your husband when he walks out on you. — Nina George