Ariel Leve > Quotes

“Complaining is a lot like talking, only more constructive.”
― Ariel Leve, It Could Be Worse, You Could Be Me: Witty Essays on Life's Comic Misfortunes for David Sedaris Fans

“For Liza, a greeting is an opportunity to make new friends. For me, it's yet more people I'll have to avoid.”
― Ariel Leve, It Could Be Worse, You Could Be Me: Witty Essays on Life's Comic Misfortunes for David Sedaris Fans

“People are always doing studies. Now there's one that says drinking coffee can lead to the prevention of memory loss in old age. This is terrible news. Drinking coffee is my greatest pleasure in life. That, and forgetting.”
― Ariel Leve, It Could Be Worse, You Could Be Me: Witty Essays on Life's Comic Misfortunes for David Sedaris Fans

“When you have an erratic, unpredictable, and aggressive parent, a child will detect signs and know when not to say something or know when to hide, so a threat-detecting sense begins to emerge early on. In the end, it wires the individual to be acutely aware and highly reactive to perceived threats.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life

“You try to blunt certain emotions, but your tool isn’t a scalpel, it’s a sledgehammer. And you’re blunting all of them. To protect yourself from feeling the horrible things, you prevent yourself from feeling some of the positive things.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life

“The only thing that's worse than people who say "I am what I am" is people who say "I yam what I yam" while doing a Popeye imitation.”
― Ariel Leve, It Could Be Worse, You Could Be Me: Witty Essays on Life's Comic Misfortunes for David Sedaris Fans

“I read about a little girl who had to navigate an unsafe world, a world without boundaries. This child was left alone most of the time—if not physically, emotionally. And then every once in a while, it would hit me that that child was me.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“MY ADULTHOOD HAS been about recuperating. There was no compulsion to give life to anyone else because I was depleted. There was nothing to give.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“MY MOTHER MADE me doubt and question my perceptions. The loving and warm persona that followed the tirades confused and destabilized me. I wanted a witness. An ally. To verify. To have proof. Someone I could turn to and say, “This happened, didn’t it?” Someone who could see the transformation I saw. “I have a right to be angry, don’t I? I don’t trust her,” I say. Only I didn’t say this. Because I was seven years old and I didn’t know yet that’s how I felt. And not trusting one’s mother is, on a cellular level, unjust. I needed to be heard and kept hoping she would hear me. As a child, it was too overwhelming to believe that she couldn’t recognize reality. My craving for her to be different was powerful. It inoculated me against the tumult. I descended deep within myself, far away to a place in the future. Where things would make sense and right was right and wrong was wrong. I was able to crawl away from my rage. But I never crawled away far enough.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“What she missed out on and what I missed out on, too. I am grieving for someone who is still alive.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“And not trusting one’s mother is, on a cellular level, unjust.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“What did the real damage was buried beneath the surface. Her denial that these incidents ever occurred and the accusation that I was looking to punish her with my unjustified anger. The erasure of the abuse was worse than the abuse.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“THERE ARE STILL days I descend. On these days I am diving alone and no one can reach me. I am out of my depth. I pass twenty meters, pass thirty meters, rapturous with the descent and entering nitrogen narcosis. It’s called the Martini effect. But in this instance, the delirium is not a sensation of drunkenness but of nothingness. I descend with abandon, and there is no limit to how far I will go because the ocean I’m in is bottomless.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“I would have liked to have known you when you were happy.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“MCLEAN HOSPITAL IS known for its former residents who, with their distinguished madness, gave it a noted reputation. Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“BECAUSE HER LOVE was a vapor. It didn’t touch, it didn’t heal, it didn’t soothe.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“I’m sure now’s the time in my life to be doing a lot of things I’m not doing. I feel bad about that. But even worse is knowing that when i’m eighty-four I’ll look back on where I am now and think: those were the days.”
― Ariel Leve, It Could Be Worse, You Could Be Me: Witty Essays on Life's Comic Misfortunes for David Sedaris Fans

“it was a traumatic time for him, but that’s as far as it goes. There is a blackout—emotional amnesia for any negative memory. It’s how he coped. The pain and the stress and the strain have been deleted. As if it didn’t occur. He remembers uncomplicated, joyful times; sunshine and white sand. The darkness of this memory is mine alone.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“I DID NOT hate my mother. I feared her. I feared her destroying my life. I feared her lies would turn others against me. I feared the incessant and unending conflict I would be forced to engage in with someone who couldn’t see past her own reality. To put myself first caused her to suffer. I feared the pain I would cause. I feared that pain would metastasize into vengeance. I feared her in the way I did as a child because I was powerless then to protect myself. There are days I am still that child.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“MY INTERIOR CLOCK was set to her mood. When her mood was stable, my life was better. I accommodated that. I believed I owed her. I believed that after everything she’d done for me, everything she’d given me, this entitled her to her due. But there were no limits to her entitlement, and for those in the path of it, there were only two options. Give in or pay a price. I gave in. I wanted a peaceful life and believed this was the only way to get it. These acts of betrayal were self-preservation. Or so I believed.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“WE ARE NOT calling it brain damage. We are calling it an altered brain. A brain that was denied nutrients such as stability that were needed to feel safe and grounded.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“Every day is a struggle to fend off estrangement. The unsettled feeling is still there. An ominous sense that I will be disappointed, even though I work to keep it in check. It is an emotional tinnitus muted to a moderate decibel, and sometimes, without warning, it disappears entirely. And in this reprieve there are joyful moments.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“Now I want a quiet life. A home where I am not faced with circumstances that are out of my control. And conflict is not routine. When I need peace, I don’t want to have to explain why or bargain for it. I did that throughout my childhood. The need is not trivial. The roots are deep. I am compensating for what was absent. Seeking at the Lost and Found a missing childhood.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“Home is not who I was. But the anxiety and detachment is with me no matter where I am. An immutable isolation is the scar tissue. The homelessness is in my bones. In the homelessness, I am at home.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“I IMAGINE THAT if someone were to see this, they would think what a horrible daughter I must be. Heartless, as my mother says. Indecent. But disconnecting is something that is necessary or I will be devoured. It is her or me—and I choose me. There is no middle ground.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“WHAT CONNECTS US are the basics, tenets of normalcy I never had. Need is redefined. Pots and pans, knives and dish towels, bed linens and bath mats don’t have to match. They don’t have to even exist.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“I will be in the moment but detached from it, too. It is a strange and ethereal feeling. To slaughter the past while replenishing at the same time.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“to be separate was to be safe. The destructive beliefs were too entrenched in the landscape of my psyche, rooted in a soil that couldn’t be tilled. I believed what was missing would never regrow. Adult life would be recovery from the past. Stasis is all I could have.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“THE UNDERSTANDING OF abnormal could only be viewed as an adult, looking back. As a child, there was no barometer for normal other than not feeling under siege.”
― Ariel Leve, An Abbreviated Life: A Memoir

“Just because I ask for advice, it doesn’t mean I’m going to take it. But people get so offended. They take it so personally. It’s as if there’s an unspoken obligation that because they put in the time and went to the trouble, it feels like a rejection. Went to the trouble of what? Talking?”
― Ariel Leve, It Could Be Worse, You Could Be Me