Miranda July Quotes

68 Sourced Quotes

It was an act of devotion. A little like writing or loving someone — it doesn't always feel worthwhile, but not giving up somehow creates unexpected meaning over time.

Miranda July
Common sense and the truth should feel authorless, writ by time itself. It is actually really hard to write something that will make a terminally ill person feel better. And Positive has rules, you can't just lift your guidance from the Bible or a book about Zen; they want original material. So far none of my submissions have gotten in, but I'm getting closer.

Miranda July
I knew the beginning and the end – I just had to dream up a convincing middle.

Miranda July
And why had Deb's last boyfriend dumped her? I dumped him. Maybe you didn't French-kiss him enough. I promise you that wasn't it. Tell me how many times a day you kissed, and I'll say if it was enough. Four hundred. Not enough.

Miranda July
Was she terrifyingly beautiful? Was she so ignorant she didn't deserve the truth? Was she also a liar and thus it was something they did together? I don't believe in psychology; which says everything you do is because of yourself. That is so untrue. We are social animals, and everything we do is because of other people, because we love them, or because we don't.

Miranda July
Would she understand that time had stopped while she was gone.

Miranda July
I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again.

Miranda July
I wondered if i would spend the rest of my life inventing complicated ways to depress myself..

Miranda July
It occurred to me that everyone's story matters to themselves, so the more I listened, the more she wanted to talk.

Miranda July
I cried in English, I cried in french, I cried in all the languages, because tears are the same all around the world.

Miranda July
Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is really worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.

Miranda July
We really wanted to know all the unknowable things about each other and how we were the same and how we were different, if we even were, maybe nobody is.

Miranda July
Well, I have a theory that men don't actually cry less than women, they just do it differently. Since we never saw our fathers cry, we are forced to invent our own unique method.

Miranda July
It was a tiny sound but it woke me up because it was a human sound.

Miranda July
This person realizes that staying home means blowing off everyone this person has ever known. But the desire to stay in is very strong. This person wants to run a bath and then read in bed.

Miranda July
The word God asks a question and then answers it before there is any chance to wonder.

Miranda July
We were always getting away with something, which implied that someone was always watching us, which mean were are not alone in this world.

Miranda July
In an ideal world, we would have been orphans. We felt like orphans and we felt deserving of the pity that orphans get, but embarrassingly enough, we had parents.

Miranda July
We had once called out hello into the cauldron of the world and then run away before anyone could respond.

Miranda July
He seemed to be waiting for me to move forward. Weren't we all.

Miranda July
If you are sad, ask yourself why you are sad. Then pick up the phone and call someone and tell him the answer to the question. If you don't know anyone, call the operator and tell him. Most people don't know that the operator has to listen, it is a law. Also, the postman is not allowed to go inside your house, but you can talk to him on public property for up to four minutes or until he wants to go, whichever comes first.

Miranda July
When I was fifteen, a dark shape came into my room at night. It was dark, but it glowed, which is the first of many facts you will have to tackle with your imagination. It wasn't in the shape of a person, but right away I knew it was like a person in every way except for how it looked. As it turns out, our looks are not the main thing that makes us human.

Miranda July
Most of life is offline, and I think it always will be; eating and aching and sleeping and loving happen in the body. But it's not impossible to imagine losing my appetite for those things; they aren't always easy, and they take so much time. In twenty years I'd be interviewing air and water and heat just to remember they mattered.

Miranda July
In my paranoid world every storekeeper thinks I'm stealing, every man thinks I'm a prostitute or a lesbian, every woman thinks I'm a lesbian or arrogant, and every child and animal sees the real me and it is evil.

Miranda July
She never inquired, but she never recoiled, either. This is a quality that I look for in a person, not recoiling.

Miranda July
That is my problem with life, I just rush through it, like I'm being chased. Even things whose whole point is slowness, like drinking relaxing tea. When I drink relaxing tea I suck it down like I'm in a contest for who can drink relaxing tea the quickest.

Miranda July
Since I started making art, I've always had some kind of project that was really about and for other people, because I think I just need that balance to feel sane myself — you know?

Miranda July
It was a real whale, a photograph of a real whale. I looked into its tiny wise eye and wondered where that eye was now. Was it alive and swimming, or had it died long ago, or was it dying now, right this second? When a whale dies, it falls down through the ocean slowly, over the course of a day. All the other fish see it fall, like a giant statue, like a building, but slowly, slowly.

Miranda July
I steeled myself against laughter; I would rather die than laugh. I didn't laugh, I did not laugh. But I died, I did die.

Miranda July
Some people are uncomfortable with silences. Not me. I've never cared much for call and response. Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I ask myself: is it worth it? And it just isn't.

Miranda July