Johan Pedersen

“Ethical consistency, then, is a matter of persisting, of persevering beyond one's normal perseverance, even when one is no longer sure of one's direction, when one no longer feels excited about the investment one has made, when the outlines of the event are no longer obvious, and when one can no longer be sure that the truth the event names is not, in actuality, a simulacrum. The injunction to keep going demands the subject's self-sacrificing devotion to its goal even when the cost of this devotion is its own well-being, and even when it feels besieged by forces of corruption, exhaustion, and distraction. The moment the subject betrays its fidelity, it is no longer a subject, but reverts to being a mortal "someone" who rates her "situation" to be more important than truth.”
― Mari Ruti, The Singularity of Being: Lacan and the Immortal Within

“What makes this inner void so difficult to deal with is that it's amorphous. We can't fix it because we can't pinpoint its precise cause. And even if we could, we wouldn't be able to banish it. It's the price we pay for being human.”
― Mari Ruti, The Case for Falling in Love: Why We Can't Master the Madness of Love And Why That's the Best Part

“Love is a slippery, unruly thing, and trying to control it robs us of its delicious unpredictability.”
― Mari Ruti

“At the core of Lacanian ethics is therefore the idea that the subject who steps into the real - the place of the lack in the Other - severes its ties to the symbolic order. Such a subject is no longer embarassed by its inability to adhere to the rules of social behavior but instead embraces - feels compelled to embrace - the destructive energies of the real. This subject is not interested in trying to solve its problem within the parameteres of the system but rather insists on changing the game entirely, on defying the very structuring principles of the system, which is why "the act" opens a gateway to what might, from the perspective of the established order, seem completely inconceivable (or even utterly insane).”
― Mari Ruti, The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory's Defiant Subjects