Quotes by Michael Cunningham

Which is probably one of the reasons those of us who love contemporary fiction love it as we do. We’re alone with it. It arrives without references, without credentials we can trust. Givers of prizes (not to mention critics) do the best they can, but they may—they probably will—be scoffed at by their children’s children. We, the living readers, whether or not we’re members of juries, decide, all on our own, if we suspect ourselves to be in the presence of greatness. We’re compelled to let future generations make the more final decisions, which will, in all likelihood, seem to them so clear as to produce a sense of bafflement over what was valued by their ancestors; what was garlanded and paraded, what carried to the temple on the shoulders of the wise.

He says, I dont know if I can face this. You know. The party and the ceremony, and then the hour after that, and the hour after that.You dont have to go to the party. You dont have to go to the ceremony. You dont have to do anything at all.But there are still the hours, arent there? One and then another, and then you get through that one and then, my god, theres another. Im so sick.

A celestial light appeared to Barrett Meeks in the sky over Central Park, four days after Barrett had been mauled, once again, by love.

Shed never been religious. She hadnt allowed grief to send her crawling to the church.

She has failed. She wishes she didnt mind. Something, she thinks, is wrong with her.

The implication of this particular tale is: Trust strangers. Believe in magic.

One of the reasons ordinary people are incapable of magic is simple dearth of conviction.

There are times when you dont belong and you think youre going to kill yourself. Once I went to a hotel. Later that night I made a plan. The plan was I would leave my family when my second child was born. And thats what I did. I got up one morning, made breakfast, went to the bus stop, got on a bus. Id left a note. I got a job in a library in Canada. It would be wonderful to say you regretted it. It would be easy. But what does it mean? What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? Its what you can bear. There it is. No-ones going to forgive me. It was death. I chose life. -Laura Brown-

Maybe – let’s not rule it out – this will be the song that cuts clean, the one that matters, the one that sheds standard-issue romance and reveals, under its old skin, a raw blood-red devotion deeper than comfort, a desire profounder than schoolboy satisfaction, a yearning cold and immaculate and unstoppable as snow.

Love is deep, a mystery - who wants to understand its every particular?

The lives great artists live and the books they write are two very different things.

I’m sure there are people who are content to run errands and report for work on time and wait, with an enlivening eagerness, for the lunch bell. I wish them well. They have, however, never been the subjects of novels, and in all likelihood, will never be.

The song is an unvarnished love shout, an implorement tinged with...anger? Something like anger, but the anger of a philosoher, the anger of a pot. An anger directed at the transience of the world, at its heartbreaking beauty that collides constantly with our awareness of the fact that everything gets taken away, that were being shown marvels but reminded always that they dont belong to us. Theyre sultans treasures; were lucky, were expected to feel lucky to have been invited to see them at all.

Isn’t the universe full of gaseous elements?”Andrew says, “Yeah, there are gases and neutrinos and this shit they call dark matter.

I see myself..in those pages as she goes back and forth, enjoying simply enjoying the beauties of the moments then chastising herself for having ‘no edge’ being simple and worse, harmless.

You know, if youre hopeful, if youre even a little bit happy about something that might happen, it doesnt affect the outcome. You could still give yourself a period of optimism, even if it all falls apart.

End of story. ‘Happily ever after’ fell on everyone like a guillotine’s blade.

Its the solitude that slays you. Maybe because youd expected ruin to arrive in a grander and more romantic form.

Barrett is a bigger guy, not fat (not yet) but ursine, crimson of eye and lip; ginger-furred, possessed (he likes to think) of an enchanted sensual slyness, the prince transformed into wolf or lion, all slumbering large-pawed docility, awaiting, with avid yellow eyes, love’s first kiss.

Here, then, is the last moment of true perception, a man fishing in a red jacket and a cloudy sky reflected on opaque water.