“Just when you think you've hit rock bottom, you realize you're standing on another trapdoor.”
―
Marisha Pessl,
Night Film
“Always live your life with your biography in mind.” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“Mortal fear is as crucial a thing to our lives as love. It cuts to the core of our being and shows us what we are. Will you step back and cover your eyes? Or will you have the strength to walk to the precipice and look out?” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“It’s easy to be yourself in the dark.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“I hate how the people who really get you are the ones you can never hold on to for very long. And the ones who don’t understand you at all stick around.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“People don’t realize how easy life is to change. You just get on the bus.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“But most critically, sweet, never try to change the narrative structure of someone else's story, though you will certainly be tempted to, as you watch those poor souls in school, in life, heading unwittingly down dangerous tangents, fatal digressions from which they will unlikely be able to emerge. Resist the temptation. Spend your energies on your story. Reworking it. Making it better.” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“Those around you can have their novellas, sweet, their short stories of cliché and coincidence, occasionally spiced up with tricks of the quirky, the achingly mundane, the grotesque. A few will even cook up Greek tragedy, those born into misery, destined to die in misery. But you, my bride of quietness, you will craft nothing less than epic with your life. Out of all of them, your story will be the one to last.” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“Sometimes it takes more courage not to let yourself see. Sometimes knowledge is damaging - not enlightenment but enleadenment.” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“There might be a Starbucks on every corner and an iPhone at every ear, but don’t worry, people are still fucking crazy.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“May you walk a lighted path. May you fight for truth - your truth, not someone else's - and may you understand, above all things, that you are the most important concept, theory, and philosophy I have ever known.” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“Sovereign. Deadly. Perfect.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“She told me her father taught her to live life way beyond the cusp of it, way out in the outer reaches where most people never had the guts to go, where you got hurt. Where there was unimaginable beauty and pain ... They were always reminding themselves to stop measuring life in coffee spoons, mornings and afternoons, to keep swimming way, way down to the bottom of the ocean to find where the mermaids sang, each to each. Where there was danger and beauty and light. Only the now.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“Not returning phone calls is the severest form of torture in the civilized world.” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“We are all anthologies. We are each thousands of pages long, filled with fairy tales and poetry, mysteries and tragedy, forgotten stories in the back no one will ever read.” ― Marisha Pessl, Neverworld Wake
“It's kind of funny...the moments on which life hinges. I think growing up you always imagine your life--your success--depends on your family and how much money they have, where you go to college, what sort of job you can pin down, starting salary...But it doesn't, you know. You wouldn't believe this, but life hinges on a couple of seconds you never see coming. And what you decide in those few seconds determines everything from then on... And you have no idea what you'll do until you're there...” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“Because every one of us has our box, a dark chamber stowing the thing that lanced our heart. It contains what you do everything for, strive for, wound everything around you.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“Life had been a suit I'd only put on for special occasions. Most of the time I kept it in the back of my closet, forgetting it was there. We were meant to die when it was barely stitched anymore, when the elbows and knees were stained with grass and mud, shoulder pads uneven from people hugging you all the time, downpours and blistering sun, the fabric faded, buttons gone.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“Juliet and Romeo be damned, you can't be in love until you've flossed your teeth next to the person at least three hundred times...” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“Always live your life with your biography in mind.” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“Mortal fear is as crucial a thing to our lives as love. It cuts to the core of our being and shows us what we are. Will you step back and cover your eyes? Or will you have the strength to walk to the precipice and look out?” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“It’s easy to be yourself in the dark.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“I hate how the people who really get you are the ones you can never hold on to for very long. And the ones who don’t understand you at all stick around.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“People don’t realize how easy life is to change. You just get on the bus.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“But most critically, sweet, never try to change the narrative structure of someone else's story, though you will certainly be tempted to, as you watch those poor souls in school, in life, heading unwittingly down dangerous tangents, fatal digressions from which they will unlikely be able to emerge. Resist the temptation. Spend your energies on your story. Reworking it. Making it better.” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“Those around you can have their novellas, sweet, their short stories of cliché and coincidence, occasionally spiced up with tricks of the quirky, the achingly mundane, the grotesque. A few will even cook up Greek tragedy, those born into misery, destined to die in misery. But you, my bride of quietness, you will craft nothing less than epic with your life. Out of all of them, your story will be the one to last.” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“Sometimes it takes more courage not to let yourself see. Sometimes knowledge is damaging - not enlightenment but enleadenment.” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“There might be a Starbucks on every corner and an iPhone at every ear, but don’t worry, people are still fucking crazy.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“May you walk a lighted path. May you fight for truth - your truth, not someone else's - and may you understand, above all things, that you are the most important concept, theory, and philosophy I have ever known.” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“Sovereign. Deadly. Perfect.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“She told me her father taught her to live life way beyond the cusp of it, way out in the outer reaches where most people never had the guts to go, where you got hurt. Where there was unimaginable beauty and pain ... They were always reminding themselves to stop measuring life in coffee spoons, mornings and afternoons, to keep swimming way, way down to the bottom of the ocean to find where the mermaids sang, each to each. Where there was danger and beauty and light. Only the now.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“Not returning phone calls is the severest form of torture in the civilized world.” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“We are all anthologies. We are each thousands of pages long, filled with fairy tales and poetry, mysteries and tragedy, forgotten stories in the back no one will ever read.” ― Marisha Pessl, Neverworld Wake
“It's kind of funny...the moments on which life hinges. I think growing up you always imagine your life--your success--depends on your family and how much money they have, where you go to college, what sort of job you can pin down, starting salary...But it doesn't, you know. You wouldn't believe this, but life hinges on a couple of seconds you never see coming. And what you decide in those few seconds determines everything from then on... And you have no idea what you'll do until you're there...” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
“Because every one of us has our box, a dark chamber stowing the thing that lanced our heart. It contains what you do everything for, strive for, wound everything around you.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“Life had been a suit I'd only put on for special occasions. Most of the time I kept it in the back of my closet, forgetting it was there. We were meant to die when it was barely stitched anymore, when the elbows and knees were stained with grass and mud, shoulder pads uneven from people hugging you all the time, downpours and blistering sun, the fabric faded, buttons gone.” ― Marisha Pessl, Night Film
“Juliet and Romeo be damned, you can't be in love until you've flossed your teeth next to the person at least three hundred times...” ― Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
