The Secret Life Of Sunflowers Quotes
"If you want to murder that cheating boyfriend of yours, I’m in."
"I’m not of a distinguished age, and here, that matters."
"Expensive pieces of art are bought by the rich as an investment."
"Not if all the men were gone and all the batteries were dead."
"I loved my grandmother with the fire of a mega sun flare."
"May it delight all who enter the doors, for at least another hundred years."
"I wouldn’t have started looking at other opportunities."
"I wanted nothing more than to see my grandmother restored to her old self."
"Our memories won’t be included in the sale with the appliances."
"I don’t think I’ll ever be able to think of your home as just a pile of bricks."
"I wanted to make a difference. I thought I would leave my mark on my students’ lives and that would be my legacy."
"The whole world is set up for men to manage."
"Perhaps I am the same. Finish school, pass exams, gain teaching certificate—all checked, one after the other. Be patient until Eduard’s proposal. Except, I’ve never had patience. And now I’m losing even hope. Will I ever know happiness?"
"I imagine happiness like needlepoint. Dots of color, precious moments placed next to each other as time passes, small joys doled out over a lifetime."
"I’d take a year of pure joy over small moments spread out over a lifetime."
"Judge not, so you yourself shall not be judged."
"Treasure your correspondence, Mevrouw Bonger, I predict that with that infernal telephone device spreading, letter writing will soon become a lost skill."
"You let your smile shine from your soul. You let courage beam from your heart. The night is yours, honey. You drive this auction like it’s a Lamborghini."
"Drive it like a Lamborghini. Drive it like a Lamborghini. Right."
"The worse the soil, the bigger they flower. They’re scrappy as hell."
"If only he wouldn’t lose himself to dark thoughts."
"Matrimony holds many pleasures. A man and a woman discovering who each other are. Falling in love, based on the sure knowledge of each other, instead of wild hopes and fantasies. Then growing together."
"If you hear a voice within say you cannot do something, then by all means do that thing, and that voice will be silenced."
"Love had misted over me in slow sparkling drops like a soft summer rain."
"For the first time in my life, I felt as if I were standing on the precipice of the passion my books had promised."
"I have left the past behind. Eduard was the infatuation of a witless young girl. He was a daydream. Theo is real."
"Vincent is grievously ill with a nervous breakdown."
"I pledged my life to Theo mere days ago. I care for him too much to desert him at the first sign of hardship."
"Being a strong, independent woman who speaks the truth is a revolutionary act in this world."
"Life will be so much easier in the ground-floor apartment. Oh, do write Vincent in Auvers to tell him. In a larger apartment, we will be able to store his paintings exactly as he wishes. That should make him happy."
"You read his last letter. He is happy already. He is painting every day. He found a good friend in Dr. Gachet. I am certain his new works will sell."
"Together, you and I will triumph. We will leave all darkness behind."
"Our Wil should have a brother or sister to play with?"
"Yes." He pulled me closer. "My darling, yes."
"Vincent is at peace. You said so yourself. He is at rest."
"My heart was drowning in all the tears I held back. "You are grieving. The pain shall lessen with time. I promise, dearest."
"You will not harm yourself. You are not alone. You have me and your son. Your life is not hopeless, Theo. You are nothing like your brother."
"All is well, my cherub. Papa and Dries are merely playing a game. All is well."
"Your father is a good man. He is such a lovely man. And he loves us very much. He—"
"The best I can do is obtain him medical assistance. This is beyond the two of us, Jo. You must see that."
"I will not cry. I will not howl. I will not rage."
"Our love would heal Theo. I would not give up on him and give him over to strangers."
"IF ANY OF YOU CRY AT MY FUNERAL, I’LL NEVER SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN."
"You must learn to accept the present. Do be reasonable."
"Vincent’s work needs another agent, and my best chance for finding one is here."
"Life had stolen the man I held most dear, and in the most cruel way. I was supposed to be reasonable?"
"Fear no storms, turn in gratitude toward the light."
"Brain infection had been the official cause of death given, instead of gone stark raving mad, to spare the legacy of a good man."
"The walls were crowded with still lifes, landscapes, and portraits, and we had more, in every cupboard, and piled under the bed. In more than one corner, they towered to the ceiling. They had become the structure of our lives, defining the edges."
"I am still learning how to run a boardinghouse. Maybe it will be easier with practice."
"I understood at last how lonely Vincent must have felt. Theo knew, of course. But until then, I didn’t."
"He paid for Vincent’s lodgings, his every meal, his medical care, the paints, the canvases, every last pouch of pipe tobacco. Maybe if he did less for Vincent, there would be more left for you."
"I saw the happy home the apartment could have been, the home Theo and I had built from hopes and dreams. Except, those hopes and dreams were beginning to blink out one by one, like Paris’s gaslights in the morning."
"Her sympathetic outrage was a balm to my battered soul."
"You are right. Paris is out of my reach now. I must look closer."
"Who better to appreciate Vincent’s talent than the Dutch, the Netherlands, the country of his birth? I shall start over right here."
"The smile he gifted me held more sunshine than any artist could ever capture."
"I think we might be on the brink of success."
"Dear Russian food, where have you been all my life?"
"I refused to allow Vincent’s art to be consigned to the trash heap of history."
"I would not admit defeat. Not on this piece of land that symbolized Dutch ingenuity and persistence. I refused to fail."
"I had to come. I hope you don’t mind, Violet."
"I miss you, Violet. I wish you were here to see me make it."
"If life was a rolling river, friendship was the life raft."
"If I am to become a machine, I would become the most efficient machine possible."
"I cannot wait to see how the gatekeepers of the art world will respond to that."
"The thought that a mother could lose so many children is unbearable."
"I had to say the words again. 'I will be Vincent’s agent.' An unheard of audacity from a woman."
"I am a widow from Bussum who takes in boarders. I am a woman of no consequence with no relevant skills. I can’t be Vincent’s agent."
"I would do anything for Wil. If I had to take on a third occupation to feed him, I would."
"I think I shall probably need a lot of help."
"I quite enjoy the Scottish authoress Mrs. Oliphant."
"You could marry me. Then we’d own both Ludington’s offices together."
"I don’t owe you anything. Get out of my house."
"I’m sorry," Bram told me over the phone, canceling our dinner plans.
"No time to think. You have to do it. There’s no one else."
"The world has done that long enough, emphasizing women’s bodies, as if our faces are interchangeable."
"When you know, you know. Someone either speaks to your heart or they don’t."
"Like art, you take them home and keep them. Everything else is a waste of time."
"I will not rest until everyone knows Vincent’s name."