# Donna Tartt

- Quotes: 19
- Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt

## Books

- [The Secret History](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history.md) — 19 quotes

## Recently added quotes

> For a warning of what happens in the absence of such a pressure valve, we have the example of the Romans. The emperors. Think, for example, of Tiberius, the ugly stepson, trying to live up to the command of his stepfather Augustus. Think of the tremendous, impossible strain he must have undergone, following in the footsteps of a savior, a god. the people hated him. No matter how hard he tried he was never good enough, could never be rid of the hateful self, and finally the floodgates broke. He was swept away on his perversions and he died, old and mad, lost in the pleasure gardens of the Capri: not even happy there, as one might hope, but miserable. Before he died he wrote a letter home to the Senate. 'May all the Gods and Goddesses visit me with more utter destruction than I feel I am daily suffering.'

p. 41 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history/for-a-warning.md)

> If I threw myself off, I thought, who would find me in all that white silence? Might the river beat me downstream over the rocks until it spat me out in the quiet waters, down behind the dye factory, where some lady would catch me in the beam of her headlights when she pulled out of the parking lot at five in the afternoon? Or would I, like the pieces of Leo's mandolin, lodge stubbornly in some quiet place behind a boulder and wait, my clothes washing about me, for spring?

p. 119 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history/if-i-threw.md)

> She really was older, not the glancing-eyed girl I had fallen in love with but no less beautiful for that; beautiful now in a way that less excited my senses than tore at my very heart.

p. 554 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history/she-really-was.md)

> "[Henry and Bunny] seem to argue quite a bit."
>
> "Well, of course," said Camilla, "but that doesn't mean they're not fond of each other all the same."

p. 62 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history/henry-and-bunny.md)

> "Are you the new neanias?" he said mockingly.
>
> The new young man. I said that I was.
>
> "Cubitum eamus?"
>
> "What?"
>
> "Nothing."

p. 33 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history/are-you-the.md)

> "I suppose in that regard my tastes are rather Hellenistic. Landlocked places interest me, remote prospects, wild country. I've never had the slightest bit of interest in the sea. Rather like what Homer says about the Arcadians, you remember? With ships they had nothing to do...."
>
> "It's because you grew up in the midwest, " Charles said.
>
> "But if one follows that line of reasoning, then it follows that I would love flat lands, and plains. Which I don't. The descriptions of Troy in the Iliad are horrible to me—all flat land and burning sun. No. I've always been drawn to broken, wild terrain. The oddest tongues come from such places, and the strangest mythologies, and the oldest cities, and the most barbarous religions—Pan himself was born in the mountains, you know. And Zeus. In Parrhasia it was that Rheia bore thee," he said dreamily, lapsing into Greek, "where was a hill sheltered with the thickest brush...."

p. 208 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history/i-suppose-in-that.md)

> Even after all that had happened, the bitterness and disappointment in his voice cut me to the heart.
>
> "Henry," I said. I wanted to say something profound, that Julian was only human, that he was old, that flesh and blood was frail and weak and that there comes a time when we have to transcend our teachers. But I found myself unable to say anything at all.
>
> He turned his blind, unseeing eyes upon me.
>
> "I loved him more than my own father," he said. "I loved him more than anyone in the world."

p. 519 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history/even-after-all.md)

> Horrific as it was, the present dark, I was afraid to leave it for the other, permanent dark — jelly and bloat, the muddy pit.

p. 488 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history/horrific-as-it-was.md)

> "I don't have any friends here for the winter," I said, and I didn't.
>
> "You shouldn't push your friends away like that. The best friends you'll ever have are the ones you're making right now. I know you don't believe me, but they start to fall away when you get to be my age."

p. 120 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history/i-dont-have.md)

> Since the two of them had been out of sorts for over a month, Henry in particular. Bunny, I knew, had been hitting him hard for money in the past week,s but though Henry complained about this he seemed oddly incapable of refusing him. I was fairly sure that it wasn't the money per se, but the principle of it; I was also fairly sure that whatever tension existed, Bunny was oblivious of it.

p. 105 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history/since-the-two.md)

> When Bunny started in again ("And then there's the one about the Old West—this is when they still hung folks...") camilla edged over on the windowsill and smiled nervously at me.
>
> I went over and sat between her and Charles. She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "How are you? she said. "Did you wonder where we were?"

p. 153 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history/when-bunny-started.md)

> "You had better watch out," she said. "I have heard some weird shit about those people [...] like they worship the fucking Devil."
>
> "The Greek have no Devil," I said pedantically.

p. 74 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/donna-tartt/the-secret-history/you-had-better.md)