History Of Love Quotes:

At the end, all that's left of you are your possessions. Perhaps that's why I've never been able to throw anything away. Perhaps that's why I hoarded the world: with the hope that when I died, the sum total of my things would suggest a life larger than the one I lived.

- Nicole Krauss

source: Nicole Krauss (2006). “The History of Love: A Novel”, p.165, W. W. Norton & Company

topic: World, Able, History Of Love

All I want is not to die on a day when I went unseen.

- Nicole Krauss

source: Nicole Krauss (2006). “The History of Love: A Novel”, p.4, W. W. Norton & Company

topic: Unseen, Want, History Of Love

The truth is the thing I invented so I could live.

- Nicole Krauss

source: Nicole Krauss (2006). “The History of Love: A Novel”, p.167, W. W. Norton & Company

topic: Truth Is, History Of Love

After all who doesn't wish to make a spectacle of their loneliness

- Nicole Krauss

topic: Loneliness, Wish, History Of Love

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.

- Nicole Krauss

source: Nicole Krauss (2006). “The History of Love: A Novel”, p.11, W. W. Norton & Company

topic: Love, Cute, Romantic, Boy And Girl, Love Literature

All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt.

- Charles M. Schulz

topic: Love, Witty, Hurt, Humor Love, Humorous Love

I want to say somewhere: I've tried to be forgiving. And yet. There were times in my life, whole years, when anger got the better of me. Ugliness turned me inside out. There was a certain satisfaction in bitterness. I courted it. It was standing outside, and I invited it in.

- Nicole Krauss

source: Nicole Krauss (2006). “The History of Love: A Novel”, p.18, W. W. Norton & Company

topic: Years, Forgiving, Want, History Of Love

To Grandma: Once upon a time, there was a boy who flew.

- Chris Colfer

topic: Grandma, Boys, Once Upon A Time, Literary Love, Short Sweet Love

Sometimes just to paint a head you have to give up the whole figure. To paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you're limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter of an inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky.

- Nicole Krauss

topic: Giving Up, Sacrifice, Sky, Limiting Yourself, History Of Love

If it weren't for her, there would never have been an empty space, or the need to fill it.

- Nicole Krauss

topic: Space, Most Romantic, Needs, Literary Love, History Of Love

So many words get lost. They leave the mouthand lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. On rainy days you can hear their chorus rushing past.

- Nicole Krauss

source: Nicole Krauss (2006). “The History of Love: A Novel”, p.111, W. W. Norton & Company

topic: Past, Rainy Day, Rushing, Wandering Aimlessly, History Of Love

...An average of seventy-four species become extinct every day, which was one good reason but not the only one to hold someone's hand...

- Nicole Krauss

topic: Hands, Average, Four, History Of Love

And if the man who once upon a time had been a boy who promised he'd never fall in love with another girl as long as he lived kept his promise, it wasn't because he was stubborn or even loyal. He couldn't help it.

- Nicole Krauss

source: Nicole Krauss (2006). “The History of Love: A Novel”, p.13, W. W. Norton & Company

topic: Girl, Falling In Love, Boys, Another Girl, Never Fall In Love

Wittgenstein once wrote that when the eye sees something beautiful, the hand wants to draw it. I wish I could draw you.

- Nicole Krauss

topic: Beautiful, Eye, Hands, History Of Love

Then he almost but didn't say the two sentence he'd been meaning to say for years: part of me is made of glass, and also, I love you

- Nicole Krauss

topic: Love You, Years, Two, History Of Love

When I got older I decided I wanted to be a real writer. I tried to write about real things. I wanted to describe the world, because to live in an undescribed world was too lonely.

- Nicole Krauss

source: Nicole Krauss (2006). “The History of Love: A Novel”, p.7, W. W. Norton & Company

topic: Lonely, Real, Writing, History Of Love

If at large gatherings or parties, or around people with whom you feel distant, your hands sometimes hang awkwardly at the ends of your arms - i you find yourself at a loss for what do with them, overcome with sadness that comes when you recognize the foreignnes of your own body - it's because your hands remember a time when the division between mind and body, brain and heart, what's inside and what's outside, was so much less.

- Nicole Krauss

topic: Party, Heart, Sadness, Heart And Brain, History Of Love

And it's like some tiny nothing that sets off a natural disaster halfway across the world, only this was the opposite of disaster, how by accident she saved me with that thoughtless act of grace, and she never knew, and how that, too, is the part of the history of love.

- Nicole Krauss

topic: Opposites, Grace, World, History Of Love

Maybe the first time you saw her you were ten. She was standing in the sun scratching her legs. Or tracing letters in the dirt with a stick. Her hair was being pulled. Or she was pulling someone's hair. And a part of you was drawn to her, and a part of you resisted--wanting to ride off on your bicycle, kick a stone, remain uncomplicated. In the same breath you felt the strength of a man, and a self-pity that made you feel small and hurt. Part of you thought: Please don't look at me. If you don't, I can still turn away. And part of you thought: Look at me.

- Nicole Krauss

topic: Hurt, Men, Hair, Uncomplicated, Tracing

She was gone, and all that was left was the space you'd grown around her, like a tree that grows around a fence. For a long time, it remained hollow. Years, maybe. And when at last it was filled again, you knew that the new love you felt for a woman would have been impossible without Alma. If it weren't for her, there would never have been an empty space, or the need to fill it.

- Nicole Krauss

topic: Love You, Years, Space, History Of Love

Franz Kafka is dead. He died in a tree from which he wouldn't come down. "Come down!" they cried to him. "Come down! Come down!" Silence filled the night, and the night filled the silence, while they waited for Kafka to speak. "I can't," he finally said, with a note of wistfulness. "Why?" they cried. Stars spilled across the black sky. "Because then you'll stop asking for me."

- Nicole Krauss

topic: Night, Silence, Tree, Cried, Wistfulness