Donna Tartt Quotes

“But when she was annoyed with me, she had a cold way of saying “Apparently” in answer to almost anything I said, making me feel stupid. “Um, I can’t find the can opener.” “Apparently.” “There’s going to be a lunar eclipse tonight.” “Apparently.” “Look, sparks are coming out of the wall socket.” “Apparently.”

“Be proactive not reactive, for an apparently insignificant issue ignored today can spawn tomorrow's catastrophe.”

“Apparently the rarest commodities on earth are truth and honesty.”

“Recall the metaphor I used in chapter 4 relating the random movements of molecules in a gas to the random movements of evolutionary change. Molecules in a gas move randomly with no apparent sense of direction. Despite this, virtually every molecule in a gas in a beaker, given sufficient time, will leave the beaker. I noted that this provides a perspective on an important question concerning the evolution of intelligence. Like molecules in a gas, evolutionary changes also move every which way with no apparent direction. Yet we nonetheless see a movement toward greater complexity and greater intelligence, indeed to evolution’s supreme achievement of evolving a neocortex capable of hierarchical thinking. So we are able to gain an insightinto how an apparently purposeless and directionless process can achieve an apparently purposeful result in one field (biological evolution) by looking at another field (thermodynamics).”

“The Apparent is the Bridge to the Real”

“All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue.”

“Apparently, dancing for him and throwing herself at him weren't enough. Apparently, she had to nearly commit murder to arouse him enough to attack her.”

“Hate is no respecter of race - as apparently neither is stupidity.”

“We have abolished the real world: what world is left? The apparent world perhaps? . . . But no! with the real world we have also abolished the apparent world.”

“Current "literature" [is] well-written books in which disgusting people do disgusting things to other disgusting people for no apparent reason and with no apparent resolution.”