Lynn Cullen Quotes

Only the rich, he said not a little bitterly, can afford to act like income does not matter.

What did I expect him to say
that he would leave his wife? To do so was the province of fiction. Real life was not as easy as that.

History has a way of forgetting the mistresses of great men. Even if they have talent.

The unspoken truth was that New Yorkers considered everyone in the world to be just a tad - well, more than just a tad, a lot more than a tad - old-fashioned compared with themselves.

First you must believe there is a soul."
"Do you?"
"If by a soul one means the creature who lives within each of us, a creature born loving, born joyful, but who with each wordly blow shrinks more deeply into its shell until at last, the poor desiccated thing is unrecognizable, even to its own self, yes. I do.

Magdalena pulls me away by the arm. "I am the stronger one of Titus and I," she says over the marketplace din. "Woman are always the stronger sex." She smiles to herself. "The trick is not appearing to be so.

The principled man is merely one whose ancestors were ruthlessly unprincipled, affording him the option of acting upon fine sentiments.

Every heart, it have its own ache.

To say that he 'nailed a subject's soul to the canvas' makes the assumption that we persons, as well as artists, can see one another's souls.
Maybe we do. Maybe we all have the ability to perceive another's soul, and do so every day, only we take it for granted, and don't even know it when we're doing it. We call it knowing someone's 'character' or 'personality.

In spite of Mr. Poe's fame, the pair made me feel out of sorts, and sad. In one of the busiest cities in the world, they seemed to exist on a bleak island of their own making, their backs turned against the social tide lapping at the battered door.

Pay attention to fate ... It will always have the last word.

In painting, three things must be considered - the position of the viewer, the position of the object viewed, and the position of the light that illuminates the object.

Tell me," said Miss Fuller, "who is behind a great woman?" She looked around our circle, then stopped at me. "That's right. No one. She has to get there by herself.

Whenever you see this much wealth, assume that someone dirtied his hands. Fortunes don't come to saints.

But why should we have dominion? Are we better than the dog that stays by a master who forgets to notice him? Than the cat who lays the mouse at your door when she is hungry and could have eaten it herself? Than a horse who will keep galloping to please you until its lungs have given out?

It is as if producing a creative work tears a piece from your soul. When it is ripped completely free of you, the wound must bleed for a while. How similar it is to letting go of a dream, your hope, or your heart's desire. You must open up and let it drain.

You and I are poets, Mrs. Osgood. Our job is to raise questions, not to answer them.

Fortunate is the person who can succeed in extracting honey from such a flower as this life, whose root and every petal is bitterness.

He was as uncontainable as a handful of water: if you squeezed, it trickled away.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.'

Pay attention to fate, Mrs. Osgood. It will always have the last word.

Americans are being poisoned, all in the name of profit, producing a weak-minded race of people who are given to lust and desire.

Tell me, who is behind a great woman? That's right. No one. She has to get there herself.

Desire inspires us to be our very best.

Madness," he said quietly, "is as a drop of ink in water. It sends sly tendrils from the afflicted person into everyone around until all are shaded in black. Soon one does not know who is mad and who is not.

How quickly the world changes, yet we are so busy trying to live that we don't notice it. And yet, it does not change quickly enough.