Allie > Allie's Quotes

“Caretaking is never about the other person. It's about wanting to feel needed because you're afraid you're not wanted.”
― Claire Fontaine, Comeback: A Mother and Daughter's Journey Through Hell and Back

“What was the payoff? It obviously kept me in my cozy zone of being in control, being a good mother, with a good daughter. Most of all, I realize, is that it allowed me to maintain the lie that she was healed, that Nick hadn't permanently damaged her, that I'd truly saved her. Because if I did, if there was no lasting residue of him, it meant that the denial that kept me in the marriage long enough for him to hurt her didn't help create the situation she's in now.
The person who I worked hardest to keep safe seems to have been me.”
― Claire Fontaine, Comeback: A Mother and Daughter's Journey Through Hell and Back

“- Child is abused, perpetrator threatens to hurt mother. Child feels protective of mother.
- Struggle to escape perp reinforces feelings of mutual protection. It's Mom and I against the world.
- Something necessary at the time later creates "enmeshment." Child doesn't see her actions as separate from mother. Even during normal adolescent individuation. But--
- Normal individuation doesn't happen in abuse survivors. They don't feel normal, so they--
- Act out in unhealthy or self-destructive ways, which creates--
- Fear and pain for mother, which creates--
- Guilt for child who still feels responsible for mother's emotional health.
- Child seeks release from the guilt and from not feeling normal, which leads to--
- Escape to the world of other not normal people, where mother can't see her child self-destruct, which leads to--
"The bad news.”
― Claire Fontaine, Comeback: A Mother and Daughter's Journey Through Hell and Back

“God save us from people who mean well.”
― Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”
― Anna Quindlen

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“But man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“Let him think that I am more man than I am and I will be so.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“No one should be alone in their old age, he thought.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
― Emma Lazarus

“What if you're chicken? What if you're more chicken than chicken soup?" Malloy said.
Kit gave him a long, hard look. "Then you pretend you're not. You pretend so hard it comes true.”
― Tania Unsworth, The One Safe Place

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“To define is to limit.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“For to know a man's library is, in some measure, to know his mind.”
― Geraldine Brooks, March

“Every life has death and every light has shadow. Be content to stand in the light and let the shadow fall where it will.”
― Mary Stewart, The Hollow Hills

“You may be poor, but the one thing nobody can take away from you is the freedom to fuck up your life whatever way you want to.”
― Jonathan Franzen, Freedom

“The personality susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom is a personality also prone, should the dream ever sour, to misanthropy and rage.”
― Jonathan Franzen, Freedom

“I admire your capacity for admiring.”
― Jonathan Franzen, Freedom

“Patty knew, in her heart, that he was wrong in his impression of her. And the mistake she went to go on to make, the really big life mistake, was to go along with Walter's version of her in spite of knowing that it wasn't right. He seemed so certain of her goodness that eventually he wore her down.”
― Jonathan Franzen, Freedom

“You have your wonderful memories," people said later, as if memories were solace. Memories are not. Memories are by definition of times past, things gone. Memories are the Westlake uniforms in the closet, the faded and cracked photographs, the invitations to the weddings of the people who are no longer married, the mass cards from the funerals of the people whose faces you no longer remember. Memories are what you no longer want to remember.”
― Joan Didion, Blue Nights

“Do not whine... Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone.”
― Joan Didion, Blue Nights

“In theory momentos serve to bring back the moment. In fact they serve only to make clear how inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here. How inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here is something else I could never afford to see.”
― Joan Didion, Blue Nights

“I know what the fear is.
The fear is not for what is lost.
What is lost is already in the wall.
What is lost is already behind the locked doors.
The fear is for what is still to be lost.”
― Joan Didion, Blue Nights

“I tell you this true story just to prove that I can. That my frailty has not yet reached a point at which I can no longer tell a true story.”
― Joan Didion, Blue Nights

“I liked it all, but most of all I liked the fact that although the play was entirely focused on Quintana there were, five evenings and two afternoons a week, these ninety full minutes, the run time of the play, during which she did not need to be dead.
During which the question remained open.
During which the denouement had yet to play out.
During which the last scene played did not necessarily need to be played in the ICU overlooking the East River.
During which the bells would not necessarily sound and the doors would not necessarily be locked at six.
During which the last dialogue heard did not necessarily need to concern the vent.
Like when someone dies, don't dwell on it.”
― Joan Didion, Blue Nights

“We still counted happiness and health and love and luck and beautiful children as "ordinary blessings.”
― Joan Didion, Blue Nights