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“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.”
― The Bell Jar
― The Bell Jar
“To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.”
― The Bell Jar
― The Bell Jar
“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”
― The Bell Jar
― The Bell Jar
“Now, lying on my back in bed, I imagined Buddy saying, ‘Do you know what a poem is, Esther?’
‘No, what?’ I would say.
‘A piece of dust.’
Then just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, ‘So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you’re curing. They’re dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.’
And of course Buddy wouldn’t have any answer to that, because what I said was true. People were made of nothing so much as dust, and I couldn’t see that doctoring all that dust was a bit better than writing poems people would remember and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick and couldn’t sleep.”
― The Bell Jar
‘No, what?’ I would say.
‘A piece of dust.’
Then just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, ‘So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you’re curing. They’re dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.’
And of course Buddy wouldn’t have any answer to that, because what I said was true. People were made of nothing so much as dust, and I couldn’t see that doctoring all that dust was a bit better than writing poems people would remember and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick and couldn’t sleep.”
― The Bell Jar
Jana’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Jana’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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