"The Goldfinch" Quotes

Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn't it? And isn't the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?

That life—whatever else it is—is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open.

We don't get to choose our own hearts. We can't make ourselves want what's good for us or what's good for other people. We don't get to choose the people we are.

If you are in a garden, which is most beautiful? A dead tree or a living one?

I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe.

The painting is a presence in my life like a living person, a presence with whom I converse every day.

I had the sense of coming home to a place I should have never left.

I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free.

We don’t get to choose what we want and don’t want. There’s no choosing what we feel. We don’t get to choose what hurts us.

You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.