Patrick McGrath > Quotes

“I am not, as you will have observed, a man greatly enamored of his fellow human beings. I do not enter lightly into the foibles and whimsicalities of others, I do not suffer fools gladly, I seem able, in conversation, only to needle or be needled. My relationships, as a result, are few, and those few are tenuous, prickly sorts of arrangements, altogether lacking in the spontaneity and intimacy for which humans, I'm told, have an instinctive need. I am aware of no such instincts myself. ”
― Patrick McGrath

“All was strange in a fog, buildings grew vague, human beings groped and became lost, the landmarks, the compass points, by which they navigated melted into nothingness and the world was transfigured into a country of the blind. But if the sighted became blind, then the blind - and for some odd reason I have always regarded myself as one of the blind - the blind became sighted, and I remember felling at home in the fog, happily at ease in the murk and gloom that so confused my neighbors.”
― Patrick McGrath, Spider

“Stella realized then that Charlie's unhappiness had locked him out of this community as effectively as hers had, and she felt a dull sense of confirmation, she felt she might have known, this is the nature of people, they unerringly select as their victim the one who most needs their warmth.”
― Patrick McGrath, Asylum

“The uncanny first impression was again one of private hells coexisting in public space.”
― Patrick McGrath, Asylum

“A tissue of small sounds filled the room, a bird, a clock, a voice from another garden. What we call silence.”
― Patrick McGrath, Dr. Haggard's Disease

“Aveva perso il controllo. Non si controlla un innamoramento, mi disse, non è possibile. E la divertiva che fosse potuto accadere in questo modo, con quest'uomo. Un paziente. Un paziente che lavorava nell'orto. Stella, le dissi, non potevi fare una scelta più scriteriata. La verità, mi rispose, è che non ho scelto affatto.”
― Patrick McGrath, Asylum

“This is the nature of people, they unerringly select as their victim the one who most needs their warmth.”
― Patrick McGrath, Asylum

“Isolated people, those who live alone, are always conscious of their condition in the homes of families.”
― Patrick McGrath, Trauma

“I often wondered how it would be to tramp off into the mountains and keep going until I was exhausted, then simply sink into the snow and fall asleep. Then the wolves could have me.
To want to die in the forest and be eaten by wolves: another marker of incipient madness.”
― Patrick McGrath, Trauma

“As we shook hands I wondered idly what her urine looked like.”
― Patrick McGrath, Dr. Haggard's Disease

“«E in ogni caso io sono un medico, non ho nulla da rimproverare a chi si ammala. E come potrei rimproverare a te di esserti innamorata?»
«Gli altri ci riescono benissimo.»
«Ah, ma perché per loro è stato un trauma. Se ci pensi, quand’è che cominciamo a fare delle distinzioni tra quel che è giusto e quel che è sbagliato? Quando qualcosa ci ferisce o minaccia di farlo.»”
― Patrick McGrath, Follia

“We see nobody clearly. We see only the ghosts of absent others, and mistake for reality the fictions we construct from blueprints drawn up in early childhood. This is the problem.”
― Patrick McGrath, Trauma

“Être éveillé, c’est souffrir; voila le sens profond de la vie.”
― Patrick McGrath, Spider

“To be awake is to be available to torment, and this is the full complete meaning of life.”
― Patrick McGrath, Spider

“We coexisted in a state of mutual detachment.”
― Patrick McGrath, Trauma

“Le donne romantiche, riflettei: non pensano mai al male che fanno in quella loro forsennata ricerca di esperienze forti. In quella loro infatuazione per la libertà.!”
― Patrick McGrath, Asylum

“Люблю сырость таких дней, сырость, сумрак и густые серые тучи, потому что лишь в такую погоду чувствую себя в ладу с миром.”
― Patrick McGrath, Spider

“Poi tirò fuori il denaro. Denaro voleva dire roba da mangiare e da bere. Avrebbe dovuto farla felice, e invece si sentì depressa. Il pensiero di cosa comprare con quel denaro, il denaro di Edgar, era di una volgarità intollerabile. La vita era uno squallido baratto, soldi contro tempo. Coi soldi potevano comprarsi un po' di tempo, va bene, e col tempo che cosa si sarebbero comprati, la possibilità di vedere il loro amore trasformarsi in cenere? Sentire che tutto si svuotava di significato era spaventoso.”
― Patrick McGrath, Follia

“Soon enough the tears came but of course nobody came down to see if she was all right, it was just the slut in the kitchen who'd ruined their lives, getting drunk of neat gin and howling for her lost lunatic offer.”
― Patrick McGrath

“Aucune folie n’est assez profonde pour vous exclure de la communauté des fumeurs.”
― Patrick McGrath, Spider

“Stella mi disse di aver capito in quel momento che in ciascuno di noi c'è come l'anelito a gridare al mondo la verità, a qualsiasi costo. O a distruggersi.”
― Patrick McGrath, Follia

“There is something I have learned since being paralyzed, and that is that in the absence of sensory information, the imagination always tends to the grotesque.”
― Patrick McGrath, The Grotesque

“Nothing improper was occurring, on the surface, but she hadn't said a word about her new friend to Max; and by consistently failing to mention and event of significance in her day she was practising a form of duplicity.”
― Patrick McGrath, Asylum

“Strange how reluctant I was to acknowledge that control of my fate lay beyond my own conscious will. Habit of a lifetime, I suppose.”
― Patrick McGrath, The Grotesque

“Houses, I have come to believe, like love, like nature herself, should not reassure, should not attempt to soothe, or give comfort, but should, rather, excite.”
― Patrick McGrath, Dr. Haggard's Disease

“Solitude is a terrible thing, for it permits the imagination to picture, in detail, that which perhaps should never be articulated.”
― Patrick McGrath, The Grotesque

“Raggiunto solo a prezzo di sforzi enormi, l'equilibrio psichico di un artista è così delicato che ogni distrazione, ogni interferenza della cruda realtà esterna possono distruggerlo in un attimo: per fare arte bisogna voltare le spalle alla vita. Sotto questo profilo Edgar era talmente sensibile che avevo sempre considerato la sua una personalità artistica allo stato puro. Per lui la relazione tra arte e salute mentale era tanto precisa quanto delicata: se la prima veniva disturbata, la seconda ne avrebbe risentito, finendo per andare in pezzi.”
― Patrick McGrath, Follia

“Mi ero portato dietro il suo destino, e lo tenevo ancora in mano.”
― Patrick McGrath, Follia

“For despite his confidence, and his apparent maturity, I suspected that there was in him a deep and childish need to elevate, and idealize, the love object. This is not uncommon in artists. The very nature of their work, the long periods of isolation followed by public self-display, and the associated risk of rejection all conspire to create unnaturally intense relationships with their sexual partners. Then, when disillusion occurs, as of course it must, the sense of betrayal is profound...”
― Patrick McGrath, Asylum

“Le donne romantiche, riflettei: non pensano mai al male che fanno di quella loro forsennata ricerca di esperienze forti. In quella loro infatuazione per la libertà.”
― Patrick McGrath, Follia