Jeanette Winterson Quotes

People say things like "it wasn't supposed to go this way" and "this isn't what I wanted." They're just making noise. There's no such thing as "supposed to," and what you want doesn't matter. All that matters is what happened.

Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect.

I don't expect anything from anybody. When you grow old... Your days are gone; it is part of life.

And that’s the way it is

Mind's requirements and expectations cannot be fulfilled. Existence has no obligation to fulfill mind's requirements and demands. You have to accept existence as it is.

People have to be realistic, or the dream just drags on.

You can't always get what you want.

There's no real alternative to what there is.

We ought not to desire the impossible.

No, it's not fair, but what makes Earth feel like Hell is our expectation that it should feel like Heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You'll find out for yourself soon enough. It won't help the situation for you to get all upset.

I'd love to tell you that something is going to change tomorrow. But the reality is that it won't.

The days of idealism had gone. Only life was left.

Honorable beginnings should serve to awaken curiosity, not to heighten people's expectations. We are much better off when reality surpasses our expectations, and something turns out better than we thought it would.

Life is not what you expected it to be.

The only way to keep a dream, any dream at all, to keep a dream perfect and rosy and intact and unsullied is never to live it out. The moment you carry out any of your dreams or your fantasies - travel around the world, climbing a high mountain, buying a new house, writing a novel, carrying out a sexual fantasy, traveling to an unknown country - the moment you carry out your dreams, it's always, by definition less perfect and rosy than it had been as a dream. This is the nature of dreams.

One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact. It is as it is, and it will be as it must be.

This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature.

… the world will indulge you just so long Asher Lev. Then it will stop. You will simply have to grow accustomed to that truth.

I know there are certain things that I just can't win.

Fight if you wish. Deny what is before you if it comforts you. But nothing you do can change your fate.

We never get upset over what happens. Never. We get upset because of preconceived ideas as to what we think should happen, what we want to happen. When our preference clashes with the reality, we get hurt. Rid yourself of all preconceived ideas as to what should happen. You are then at peace whatever happens.

Here's Henry, trying to burst the bubble still further, if indeed it needs more bursting

I learned a long time ago that the show you're going to see isn't the one you have in your head. As soon as you understand that, you're going to enjoy it a lot more.

To take the world as one finds it

As I was saying to the landlord only this morning: 'You can't have everything'.