Passages from Sexing the Cherry

I've always loved copying favorite passages from books. Here are a few I'd like to share from a recent read:

Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson.


I noticed a woman whose face was a sea voyage I had not the courage to attempt. (21)

I have noticed that women have a private language. A language not dependent on the constructions of men but structured by signs and expressions, and that uses ordinary words as code-words meaning something other. (31)

I fell in love once, if love be that cruelty which takes us straight to the gates of Paradise only to remind us they are closed for ever. (35)

He asked me if I knew the story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. I said I had heard it, and he told me they were still living just down the road, though of course they were quite a bit older now. Why didn't I go and see them? (43)

She is like a mathematical equation, always there and impossible to disprove. (79)

Above me the gulls burst in white battalions, and ahead of me the tall rocks loom. To the north of this tiny island is a tract of sand where the sea cuts through like a tongue. I will pull up my boat at this deep divided shore and see what signs of life there are. Islands are metaphors for the heart, no matter what poet says otherwise. (80)

Now the future is wild and waits for us as a beast in a lair. (83)



Photo by J. Steuben