The Chronology of Water QUOTES

61 " My sister and I, we were selfish. We wanted selves. There was no rage or love that could stop us. "

― Lidia Yuknavitch , The Chronology of Water

63 " I thought of Shakespearean chiasmus. A chiasmus in language is a crisscross structure. A doubling back sentence. A doubling of meaning. My favorite is “love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.” As a motif, a chiasmus is a world within a world where transformation is possible. In the green world events and actions lose their origins. Like in dreams. Time loses itself. The impossible happens as if it were ordinary. First meanings are undone and remade by second meanings. "

― Lidia Yuknavitch , The Chronology of Water

65 " Once you open your mouth, you are moving away from the truth of things. "

― Lidia Yuknavitch , The Chronology of Water

67 " think that everyone that knew Kesey knew him differently. Maybe that’s true about all larger than life people, or it may be that no one really ever knows them at all - we just have exper - iences near them and claim them as our own. We say their names and wish that something intimate is coming out of our mouths. But intimacy isn’t like in books or movies. "

― Lidia Yuknavitch , The Chronology of Water

69 " If your marriage goes busto, make up a different you. If the family you came from sucked, make up a new one. Look at all the people there are to choose from. If the family you are in hurts, get on the bus. Like now.
I’m saying I think you have to break into the words “relationship” or “marriage” or “family” and bring the walls down. Don1t even get me started on the current BAR PEOPLE WHO LOVE EACH OTHER FROM MARRYING fiasco. Annie get your gun. Jeez. Anyway. The key is, make up shit.
Make up stories until you find one you can live with.
I learned it through writing.
Writing can be that. "

― Lidia Yuknavitch , The Chronology of Water

71 " There we were that night breaking up in the snow. A still shot of drunken rage looking down on gentle beauty. Well, I went a little wacko, which used to happen a lot back then, and I started a fight with him. I don't know why. I remember looking at the top of his head and thinking look, it's an angel, and my very next thought was, spit on his head. "

― Lidia Yuknavitch , The Chronology of Water

73 " Events don’t have cause and effect relationships the way you wish they did. It’s all a series of fragments and repetitions and pattern formations. Language and water have this in common. "

― Lidia Yuknavitch , The Chronology of Water

75 " You the swimmer, after all. And then you see the waves without pattern, scooping up everyone, throwing them around like so many floating heads, and you can only laugh in your sobbing at all the silly head bobbers. Laughter can shake you from the delirium of grief. "

― Lidia Yuknavitch , The Chronology of Water

77 " You know who she was? My intellect. When I opened the door and there she stood, with her sassy red reading glasses and fitted skirt and leather bookbag, I thought, who the hell are you? Crouching into a defensive posture and looking at her warily out of the corner of my eye. Watch out, woman.
To which she replied, I’m Lidia. I have a desire toward language and knowledge that will blow your mind. And I’m here to write a dissertation.
Yeah. Right. Whatever. And anyway, where did you even come from? "

― Lidia Yuknavitch , The Chronology of Water

79 " It wasn't epic compared to the other wounds in my life. "

― Lidia Yuknavitch , The Chronology of Water