Top 40 Kathleen Tessaro Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “When a woman changes her hair what she’s really saying to fate is, no. I refuse to be defined by those terms.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

2. “If you can capture a woman’s imagination, then you will have her. But imagination is a strange creature. It needs time and distance to function properly.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

3. “There is nothing more difficult than simplicity, and therefore, nothing more refined.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

4. “There’s an art to life. Some people have talent for it. A boundless hope illuminates them. Where others are vague and tentative, they have only sharp, clear edges. Energy soars; lights burn brighter when they enter a room.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

5. “Scent memory is incredibly personal; a very private experience.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

6. “Life is, after all, a sensual experience. Our senses have the power to truly transport us but also to ground us. Make us human.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

7. “There are no great fanfares for the truly great moments of your life. Just dripping taps and the sound of your own footsteps, walking from one room into another.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

8. “The universe is bound by unseen threads. We have only to untangle them a little to see a pattern unfold.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

9. “She tore off a piece of baguette; it was both crusty and soft, still warm in the centre. It was amazing how something so simple, so basic could be this delicious.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

10. “An uninterrupted view of the Paris skyline was spread out before her, like a giant landscape painting rendered in shades of blue-grey, charcoal and purple-tinted umber; the dreamy palette of shifting shadows at twilight. The blue hour.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

11. “Most people assume that a muse is a creature of perfect beauty, poise and grace. Like the creatures from Greek mythology. They’re wrong. In fact, there should be a marked absence of perfection in a muse – a gaping hole between what she is and what she might be. The ideal muse is a woman whose rough edges and contradictions drive you to fill in the blanks of her character. She is the irritant to your creativity. A remarkable possibility, waiting to be formed.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

12. “This, Mrs Munroe, is the scent of intoxication and desire. The perfume of seduction.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

13. “We forgive not because it’s easy or the right thing to do, but that the choice to forgive is in itself powerful. It’s an affirmation, a willingness to take life on life’s terms. And a privilege that no one can take from you. It.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

14. “When you are older and have swum out into the stream of life, you’ll see – there are no ‘good’ people, little girl. We’re all trying and failing, trying too hard and failing too often. Remember that. We shouldn’t judge too harshly, in the end, the sins of others.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

15. “What could be more beautiful than the fact that love exists in a random universe?”

— Kathleen Tessaro

16. “Better to go alone than to be badly accompanied. – Madame Dariaux.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

17. “Her eyes were as wide as a nun’s in a brothel.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

18. “A woman who no longer cares about how she looks has given up on more than fashion – she’s given up on life.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

19. “The ideal muse is a woman whose rough edges and contradictions drive you to fill in the blanks of her character. She is the irritant to your creativity. A remarkable possibility, waiting to be formed.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

20. “What would you like to do with it?’ he pressed. Grace thought a moment. ‘Live, Monsieur Tissot. I’d like to live in great comfort. And peace.’ And then she added, quite to her surprise, ‘With no one to tell me what to do or how to do it.’ He.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

21. “But Paris had been designed. Here, historical landmarks appeared graciously; evenly spaced for maximum aesthetic impact. One had only to follow from one to another to reach any destination, including the Left Bank.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

22. “People take for granted what is in fact an art. To live well, to live comfortably by one’s own standards takes a certain maturity of spirit, exceptional character, truly refined taste, and – ’ ‘And money.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

23. “There is nothing more difficult than simplicity,’ Madame.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

24. “The world was full of collectors, scouring the earth for pieces of themselves.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

25. “But where Ma saw only old books gathering dust and smelling of mildew, I found comfort and possibility. Other worlds were within my grasp – better worlds full of rewarded ambition, refinement, and eloquence. I clung to them as a pilgrim whose faith is proportional to the extremity of their need clings to a relic or a prayer.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

26. “You see, nothing is more immediate, more complete than the sense of smell. In an instant, it has the power to transport you. Your olfactory sense connects not to the memory itself, but to the emotion you felt when that memory was made. To recreate a scent memory is one of the most challenging, eloquent pursuits possible. It’s poetry, in its most immediate form.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

27. “My husband claims I have an unhealthy obsession with secondhand bookshops. That I spend too much time daydreaming altogether. But either you intrinsically understand the attraction of searching for hidden treasure amongst rows of dusty shelves or you don’t; it’s a passion, bordering on a spiritual illness, which cannot be explained to the unaffected.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

28. “It could be argued that all perfume is born out of shame; a self-consciousness of our natural odour.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

29. “Easing back in her seat, Grace watched the children in the playground opposite, coats off, faces flushed, laughing hysterically with pleasure. They were so vividly alive, completely immersed in the game. She tried to recall a time when she’d been that way and realized she couldn’t remember when that had been. She’d lost the knack of forgetting herself. Instead she seemed to look down on herself throughout the day, scrutinizing, judging; finding herself wanting more.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

30. “Climbing the steps to the hotel, Grace paused, taking a long look at Paris, in all its shimmering, enigmatic elegance, wearing the nigh as a beautiful woman wears diamonds.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

31. “Likewise, while the men and women were no more naturally attractive than their English counterparts, they dressed with an assurance and attention to detail that would have been considered the height of arrogance in England. Here, maintaining a certain chic was apparently nothing less than a civic duty.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

32. “They seemed to be removed from her by more than just language. French people leading French lives. Why was it that anything you couldn’t readily understand became mysterious and glamorous?”

— Kathleen Tessaro

33. “No one had ever advocated her independence before. The entire success of her marriage, her whole career as a woman, depended largely upon her cheerful, uncomplicated dependence, first on her family and then on her husband. But now this stranger was challenging her; asking her to make choices, take responsibility.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

34. “The world is defined by smells – not words or shapes or sounds. This is the language that makes sense, that everyone understands.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

35. “Over the years Rita had tailored her expectations of life and others accordingly – anticipating the worst at every turn and managing to find the damp, dark potential in any cloudless sky.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

36. “Aging does that; it makes you amenable to far more ambiguous feelings and opinions than the inflexible black-and-white thinking of youth.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

37. “It’s amazing how lonely a place where you were once happy can become.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

38. “I’d like to live in great comfort. And peace.’ And then she added, quite to her surprise, ‘With no one to tell me what to do or how to do it.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

39. “He didn’t know what it was like to live between memory and regret with nothing to numb it.”

— Kathleen Tessaro

40. “Loneliness isn’t relieved in a crowd.”

— Kathleen Tessaro