Tyana > Tyana's Quotes

“Things don't go away. They become you.”
― Darin Strauss, Half a Life

“Self-hate is rarely unconditional.”
― Darin Strauss, Half a Life

“I've come to see our central nervous system as a kind of vintage switchboard, all thick foam wires and old-fashioned plugs. The circuitry isn't properly equipped; after a surplus of emotional information the system overloads, the circuit breaks, the board runs dark. That's what shock is.”
― Darin Strauss, Half a Life

“Things don't go away. They become you. There is no end, as T.S. Eliot somewhere says, but addition: the trailing consequence of further days and hours. No freedom from the past, or from the future.

But we keep making our way, as we have to. We're all pretty much able to deal even with the worst that life can fire at us, if we simply admit that it is very difficult. I think that's the whole of the answer. We make our way, and effort and time give us cushion and dignity. And as we age, we're riding higher in the saddle, seeing more terrain.”
― Darin Strauss, Half a Life

“His nervous eyes watched me above his words, apologizing for the ways the excuses weren't right even as he couldn't stop presenting them.”
― Darin Strauss, Half a Life

“We can try our human best at the crucial moment, and it might not be good neough.”
― Darin Strauss, Half a Life

“Looking back now, there's something that bothers me abut the newspaper article about her death: it has Celine as Knockout, as Queen Bee, as Prom Superstar. The kid the newspaper grieved for wasn't Celine. She was none of those things. Their version of her was less distinctive than the real Celine was, less an individual, devoid of any real-life individual's quirks and smudges. The paper seemed to believe Celine's death could only be fully newsworthy, only fully sad, if she were outlandishly beautiful, outlandishly popular, outlandishly everything.”
― Darin Strauss, Half a Life

“The muffling blanket would fall over my thoughts.”
― Darin Strauss, Half a Life

“What can one do with levels of gloom and guilt, fear and disbelief, of bewilderment above one's capacity to register?”
― Darin Strauss, Half a Life

“We contain more than our understanding allows us, at a given moment, to understand.”
― Darin Strauss, Half a Life: A Memoir

“And he sought, with quick vanity, the reflection in a big mirror opposite him. Just as fast he turned away. He appeared to have reached that situation of health where vanity meant you didn't risk your face in the mirror.”
― Darin Strauss, Half a Life

“The sky had dropped a curtain on the sun.”
― Darin Strauss, Half a Life