Source: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
“When something unexpected happens don't get annoyed, get curious.”
“Yielding more wholesome food than all the messes
That now taste-curious wanton plenty dresses.”
Second Week, First Day, Part i. Compare: "Herbs, and other country messes, Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses", John Milton, L'Allegro, line 85.
La Seconde Semaine (1584)
“Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.”
Source: Autobiographical Notes
“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), p. 81
On what she typically writes about in “Exclusive interview: Petina Gappah speaks about the highs and lows of her writing career, and reveals details of her next book” https://johannesburgreviewofbooks.com/2017/09/04/exclusive-interview-petina-gappah-speaks-about-the-highs-and-lows-of-her-writing-career-and-reveals-details-of-her-next-book/ in the Johannesburg Review of Books (2017 Sep 4)
“Love is the grandest thing on God's earth, but fortunate the lover who has plenty of money.”
Acres of Diamonds (1915)
Paris Review interview (1958)
Context: The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling "Kilroy was here" on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.
