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Josephine Humphreys QUOTES

Josephine Humphreys QUOTES

1 " You can't drown yourself that simply. All good suicides involve speed and irreversibility, because the body will always move to protect itself against the sicko mind trying to do it in. "

― Josephine Humphreys , Dreams of Sleep

2 " You know a relationship has deteriorated past the point of salvage when one person detests another's gestures. "

― Josephine Humphreys , Rich in Love

3 " People Should not be protected from the world.. -It cripples them. "

― Josephine Humphreys , Rich in Love

4 " When people say they are happy for you it may mean they are sad for themselves. "

― Josephine Humphreys , The Fireman's Fair

5 " Her own dolls were either babies or storybook characters like Cinderella and Snow White who though past childhood were somehow not yet into the world, girls who kept themselves apart from the world without really knowing what for. Now girls know what for. They menstruate when they are ten, and their dolls are sluts. "

― Josephine Humphreys , Dreams of Sleep

6 " Like most good looking women, she was never sure of her beauty, and had to keep checking on it, to make sure it was still there. "

― Josephine Humphreys , The Fireman's Fair

7 " Revenge! The stupidest motive on earth, just an attempt to change history. "

― Josephine Humphreys , The Fireman's Fair

8 " But the moods could be contagious. He didn't need one right now. "

― Josephine Humphreys , The Fireman's Fair

9 " People do sometimes change, of course. Habits, allegiances, dreams are all alterable, but only under extraordinary pressure - like great love, fear, grief. More often, people don't change. A girl who never missed a day of work does not suddenly decide to stay home in bed, for no good reason. "

― Josephine Humphreys , Dreams of Sleep

10 " I wanted him to be a poet. I wanted him to adventure out into the world and learn its ways, not losing himself in the jumble of life but seeing it in the poet's eye, and withdrawing after in the library room where he could write his poems of revelation. He would tell what he had seen. He never wrote a word in his life. But he did see. "

― Josephine Humphreys , Nowhere Else on Earth

11 " Well, I mean I have forgotten how to go anywhere alone. There are things you have to do. Like throw money into a toll basket on a highway. I'd pull up to it now and panic. Or what if I had to hail a cab? It's hard to believe, but I used to be able to do things when I was twenty that are impossible now [...] It's more than the physical task. It's ...a vision of yourself. If you don't see yourself as being able to do it, then you can't, no matter how easy it is. "

― Josephine Humphreys , Dreams of Sleep

12 " If she were their mother she'd teach them these things are nothing, the clothes and toys and furniture. These things fool people into thinking they must stay where the things are. Leave it all, she'd teach them, even your hopes, and all the dreams of safe, calm places. Go with what is most terrifying, the dizzying empty night and the lonely stars until night slows and you see the whole design. Always choose love over safety if you can tell the difference... "

― Josephine Humphreys , Dreams of Sleep

13 " He's always had a nameless, unanchored longing; and when, at critical points in his life, a period of intense longing coincided with the appearance of a suitable object, he fell for it head over heels, and believed he had discovered a great passion. Poetry, friendship, work, women - each at one time he'd held to be the center of his life.
But since the origin of his passion was internal, the chosen objects couldn't hold him long; and he had to feed his yearning with yet more loss. The deepening spiral could not end well for him... "

― Josephine Humphreys , Dreams of Sleep

14 " He was in a state of wonder most of the time, the way a young boy is--engaged by the most ordinary things as if they were great miracles. "

― Josephine Humphreys , Nowhere Else on Earth

15 " The shape of his head, the set of his shoulders are a pattern she could recognize and love out of a crowd of shadows. "

― Josephine Humphreys , Dreams of Sleep

16 " That was one helpful thing he said to her, the first thing that caught her attention. "Start your life." Because she had assumed that her life was over. "

― Josephine Humphreys , Dreams of Sleep

17 " Her body was heavy and tired, and she thought, I can't carry myself another step into this life. "

― Josephine Humphreys , Dreams of Sleep

18 " I'm not sure whether or not any love matches are made in heaven, but some do suggest heaven had a hand in the introductions. "

― Josephine Humphreys , Nowhere Else on Earth

19 " Oh, the world appears to work smoothly enough, like a toy town where the only business is the constant shifting of goods and wastes. If that were all, how easy to live - buy your food, put out the garbage. But the toys and models and dolls and the world's looks are treacherous. They teach children it will be easy. The real problem of consumption and disposal are nothing like what children are led to suspect. "

― Josephine Humphreys , Dreams of Sleep

20 " She used to be a mathematician. Now she looks for omens and signs. At one time she thought math would clarify the world for her. She knew her link to real things was weak [...] She had hoped knowledge of mathematics, the world's rules, might strengthen her hold. But it did not. The world turned opaque and medieval, its every event mysterious. Now she uses a private mathematics, one made from omens and signs and dreams. "

― Josephine Humphreys , Dreams of Sleep