Mark Z. Danielewski Quotes

Oft in my way have I stood still, though but a casual passenger, so much I felt the awfulness of life.

The wanting was a wilderness and I had to find my own way out of the woods.

Sleeping. Turning in turn like planets rotating in their midnight meadow: a touch is enough to let us know we're not alone in the universe, even in sleep.

I am ashamed every day, and more ashamed the next. But I will spend the rest of my life in this living space writing these notes, this journal, recording my acts and reflections, finding some honor, some worth at the bottom of things. I want ten thousand pages that will stop the world.

Every fear, every night terror, every hour I cried for Liev, every fight with Sebastian is registered as a neat white scar.

Let's do what you fear most That from which you recoil But which still makes your eyes moist

Now I know that grief is a whetstone that sharpens all your love, all your happiest memories, into blades that tear you apart from within.

But hushed be every thought that springs From out the bitterness of things.

Had I left those images hidden in the emotions, I might have been torn to pieces by them.

There was no easy switch that she could flip to stem the flow of feelings, no way to drain the memories that pooled like acid in her stomach because her heart no longer knew what to do with them.

I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!

We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers... Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.

But it's a sad man my friend who's livin' in his own skin And can't stand the company. Every fool's got a reason to feelin' sorry for himself And turn his heart to stone. Tonight this fool's halfway to heaven and just a mile outta hell And I feel like I'm comin' home.

Love cannot exist in peace, it will always come accompanied by agonies, ecstasies, intense joys and profound sadnesses.

I am the self-consumer of my woes.

It didn't take a trauma to make you wear a mask. It didn't take your parents getting shot...or cosmic rays or a power ring...Just the perfect combination of loneliness and despair.

Seems like just yesterday, you were a part of me. I used to stand so tall, I used to be so strong; your arms around me tight, everything felt so right - unbreakable, like nothing could go wrong. Now I can't breathe. No, I can't sleep; I'm barely hanging on. Here I am, once again, I'm torn into pieces. Can't deny it, can't pretend, just thought you were the one. Broken up, deep inside, but you won't get to see the tears I cry.

wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

I let a good many mistakes show through when fixing my sensations. It will always be the same and this is what makes me despair.

The interesting thing about grief, I think, is that it is its own size. It is not the size of you. It is its own size. And grief comes to you. You know what I mean? I’ve always liked that phrase “He was visited by grief,” because that’s really what it is. Grief is its own thing. It’s not like it’s in me and I’m going to deal with it. It’s a thing, and you have to be okay with its presence. If you try to ignore it, it will be like a wolf at your door.

And there you are on the shore, fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them to an idea — some news of your own life. But the lilies are slippery and wild—they are devoid of meaning, they are simply doing, from the deepest spurs of their being, what they are impelled to do every summer. And so, dear sorrow, are you.

Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.

You lost your wife, Douglas. My heartbreaks for you, it really does. But I lose my husband every day, all over again. And I don’t even get to mourn.