Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Jeanette Winterson, from Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

[Text ID: “I was stalking love, trapping love, losing love, longing for love…”]

“Books, for me, are a home. Books don’t make a home--they are one, in the sense that just as you do with a door, you open a book, and you go inside. Inside there is a different kind of time and a different kind of space.” ― Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

When love is unreliable and you are a child, you assume that it is the nature of love – its quality – to be unreliable. Children do not find fault with their parents until later. In the beginning the love you get is the love that sets. I did not know that love could have continuity. I did not know that human love could be depended upon.

Jeanette Winterson, from Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal

“A tough life needs a tough language – and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers – a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.”

-Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? - Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

“When love is unreliable and you are a child, you assume that it is the nature of love—its quality—to be unreliable. Children do not find fault with their parents until later. In the beginning the love you get is the love that sets.”

— Jeanette Winterson, “Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?”

So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn't be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language -and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers -a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place

Jeanette Winterson. Libro: Why be happy when you could be normal?

The things that I regret in my life are not errors of judgement but failures of feeling.

Jeanette Winterson, from Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

I needed words because unhappy families are conspiracies of silence. The one who breaks the silence is never forgiven. He or she has to learn to forgive him or herself.

Jeanette Winterson, from Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal

Just One More Page Challenge Day 16: Words on a Page

Okay so….I skipped day 15…intentionally🫢

I just didn’t have a book in mind that fit that prompt (should have a sequel) I do enjoy a good series now and then, but I generally prefer standalones. So, I honestly couldn’t think of a standalone I would make a series.

But for this prompt, I DID have a book in mind. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is one of my favorite memoirs of all time, so I couldn’t resist sharing one of my favorite quotes from it!

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? - Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

— Jeanette Winterson, from “Why be Happy When You Could be Normal?”