Sena Jeter Naslund Quotes

Where we choose to be, where we choose to be--we have the power to determine that in our lives. We cannot reel time backward or forward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being.

~ Sena Jeter Naslund

What is humor?' one of their professors had posed, and he had answered, ''nondangerous, unexpectedly inappropriate juxtaposition.

~ Sena Jeter Naslund

Is beauty enhanced or adulterated by utility?

~ Sena Jeter Naslund

If you remembered somebody was as real as yourself, how could you kill anybody?

~ Sena Jeter Naslund

How the excitement comes upon me to tell it all! In the quest of writing, the heart can speed up with anticipation--as it does, indeed, during the chase itself of whales. I can swear it, having done both, and I will tell YOU though other writers may not. My heart is beating fast; I am in pursuit; I want my victory--that you should see and hear and above all feel the reality behind these words. For they are but a mask. Not the mask that conceals, not a mask that I would have you strike through as mere appearance, or, worse, deceitful appearance. Words need not be that kind of mask, but a mask such as the ancient Greek actors wore, a mask that expresses rather than conceals the inner drama.(But do you know me? Una? You have shipped long with me in the boat that is this book. Let me assure you and tell you that I know you, even something of your pain and joy, for you are much like me. The contract of writing and reading requires that we know each other. Did you know that I try on your mask from time to time? I become a reader, too, reading over what I have just written. If I am your shipbuilder and captain, from time to time I am also your comrade. Feel me now, standing beside you, just behind your shoulder?)

~ Sena Jeter Naslund

If you meet a woman of whatever complexion who sails her life with strength and grace and assurance, talk to her! And what you will find is that there has been a suffering, that at some time she has left herself for hanging dead.

~ Sena Jeter Naslund

Great minds may have cold hearts. Form but no color. It is an incompleteness. And so they are afraid of any woman who both thinks and feels deeply.

~ Sena Jeter Naslund

She sat still, I thought, and yet she traveled. And when one stitches, the mind travels, not the way men do, with ax and oxen through the wilderness, but surely our traveling counted too, as motion. And I thought of the patience of the stitches. Writing a book, I thought, which men often do, but women only rarely, has the posture of sewing. One hand leads, and the other hand helps. And books, like quilts, are made, one word at a time, one stitch at a time.

~ Sena Jeter Naslund

Honesty, like any inclination, can become a ruling passion, a monomania almost.

~ Sena Jeter Naslund

I'm sorry to burden you,' she said. She felt like a crybaby.'What can we do with our stories,' he said, 'but tell them?

~ Sena Jeter Naslund