# Quote — Janet Fitch, White Oleander

> How it was. How it was the earth could open up under you and swallow you whole, close above you as if you never were. Like Persephone snatched by the god. The ground opened up and out he came, sweeping her into the black chariot. Then down they plunged, under the ground, into darkness, and the earth closed over her head, and she was gone, as if she had never been.

- Author: [Janet Fitch](https://www.leafyquotes.com/janet-fitch.md)
- Book: [White Oleander](https://www.leafyquotes.com/janet-fitch/white-oleander.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Janet_Fitch#White_Oleander_(1999)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/janet-fitch/white-oleander/how-it-was

## More from this book

> I had already seen more of the world, its beauty and misery and sheer surprise, than they could hope or fear to perceive.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/janet-fitch/white-oleander/i-had-already.md)

> This was an artist's stare, attentive to detail, taking in the truth without preconceptions. It was a stare that didn't turn away when I stared back, but was startled to find itself returned.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/janet-fitch/white-oleander/this-was-an-artists.md)

> Without my wounds, who was I? My scars were my face, my past was my life. It wasn't like I didn't know where all this remembering got you, all that hunger for beauty and astonishing cruelty and ever-present-loss.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/janet-fitch/white-oleander/without-my-wounds.md)