Toni Morrison

I was walking down rue Oberkampf on my way to pick up donuts and ingredients for the romantic "welcome back/merry christmas/happy new year" dinner I was cooking for B the other night and suddenly I got that heart-swelling, content, intense, overwhelmed, grateful feeling... the one that just makes you stop and think: "I am so happy to be in this amazing city, in this exact moment, feeling this right now."

Then this morning, I'm lying in bed reading 'Jazz' by Toni Morrison and there are all these references to New York and I remembered the things that still take my breath away when I'm home: driving into the city over the Brooklyn Bridge, walking down East 7th Street at sunrise on a Sunday morning... These passages reminded me of my love affair with New York and I wanted to share a few:

"You have to understand what it's like, taking on a big city: I'm exposed to all sorts of ignorance and criminality. Still, this is the only life for me. I like the way the City makes people think they can do what they want and get away with it." (pg 8)

"They weren't there yet and already the City was speaking to them. They were dancing. And like a million others, chests pounding, tracks controlling their feet, they stared out the windows for the first sight of the City that danced with them, proving already how much it loved them. Like a million more they could hardly wait to get there and love it back." (pg 32)

"Like the others, they were country people, but how soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city, it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn't love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves." (pg 33)

And this was a nice little quote about love:

"I envy them their public love. I myself have only known it in secret, shared it in secret and longed, aw longed to show it-- to be able to say out loud what they have no need to say at all: That I have loved only you, surrendered my whole self reckless to you and nobody else. That I want you to love me back and show it to me. That I love the way you hold me, how close you let me be to you. I like your fingers on and on, lifting, turning. I have watched your face for a long time now, and missed your eyes when you went away from me. Talking to you and hearing you answer-- that's the kick." (pg 229)

Edith Wharton

I’m currently reading Edith Wharton’s ‘The Age of Innocence’ and keep stumbling upon these amazing passages. This woman was absolutely brilliant (that’s not even a strong enough word really) and it’s a crime that I’ve only just discovered it. Plus, she moved to Paris from New York, just like me, so I feel a great affinity for her. I’m now trying to get my hands on everything she’s ever written (I’ve just finished ‘The House of Mirth’, another doozy).

I always keep a notebook with me to jot down interesting quotes or verses that I come across so I wanted to share a couple:

“He bent and laid his lips on her hands, which were cold and lifeless. She drew them away, and he turned to the door, found his coat and hat under the faint gas-light of the hall, and plunged out into the winter night bursting with the belated eloquence of the inarticulate.”

“Half the width of the room was still between them, and neither made any show of moving… Now his imagination spun about [her] hand as about the edge of a vortex; but still he made no effort to draw nearer. He had known the love that is fed on caresses and feeds them; but this passion that was closer than his bones was not to be superficially satisfied. His one terror was to do anything which might efface the sound and impression of her words; his one thought, that he should never again feel quite alone.”