Quotes from Sheila Heti

She doesn't want a baby—but her body doesn't believe her. On some level, no one believes her. On some level, she doesn't even believe herself.

I knew that if I said a single word, I would burst into tears, as I always did, always had, my entire life, whenever anything difficult had to be discussed. It always was too scary; a threat I had felt since childhood that at any moment a relationship might disappear with a poof because of something little I had done or said.

Human life is a kind of myopia, everyone walking around, seeing only what's in front of them, or not even that—passing each other by, embroiled in our little dramas to such an extent that we miss out on everything; making big what is small.

Sholem was saying that freedom, for him, is having the technical facility to be able to execute whatever he wants, just whatever image he has in mind. But that's not freedom! That's control, or power. Whereas I think Margaux understands freedom to be the freedom to take risks, the freedom to do something bad or to appear foolish. To not recognize that difference is a pretty big thing. p. 19

Sometimes she felt bad and confused that she had not gone into politics--which seemed more straightforwardly useful, and which she thought she was probably well suited for, having something of the dictator inside, or something of the dictator's terrible certainty. Her first feeling every morning was shame about all the things wrong in the world that she wasn't trying to fix. p. 17

I have never wanted to feel like I'm dependent on a man. I've done everything I could do to avoid it. Yet men are dependent on women, too, and all humans are dependent on things beyond the human. A

I have never wanted to feel like I'm dependent on a man. I've done everything I could do to avoid it. Yet men are dependent on women, too, and all humans are dependent on things beyond the human.

I wished to have the time to put together a world view, but there was never enough time, and also, those who had it, seemed to have had it from a very young age, they didn't begin it at forty.

What if I've suppressed my desire for children so much that my desire is unrecognizable to me?

The only way to go somewhere new is to do the thing I most fear.

From now on I want to follow my heart, to do what is right for me. Instead of trusting myself, I trusted the world more. Why did I trust it for so long? All the time I was listening to myself, did I ever make a mistake? I often did. But isn't the freedom to make mistakes bigger and more important than all the advice in this world?

She had thought that when someone died, it would be like they went into a different room. She had not known that life itself transformed into a different room, and trapped you in it without them.

Such people will suddenly tell you they have another plan, and they always do it the moment things start getting difficult. But it's their everlasting switching that's the dangerous thing, not what they choose.

for what is art but the act of infusing matter with the breath of God?

We live in an age of some really good blow-job artists. Every era has its art form. The nineteenth century, I know, was tops for the novel

She had thought that when someone died, it would be like they went into a different room. She had not known that life itself transformed itself into a different room, and trapped you in it without them. Sheila Heti

She had thought that when someone died, it would be like they went into a different room. She had not known that life itself transformed itself into a different room, and trapped you in it without them.

In this book, all results from the flipping of coins result from the flipping of actual coins.

The other night out at the bars, I learned that Nietzsche wrote on a typewriter. It is unbelievable to me, and I no longer feel that his philosophy has the same validity or aura of truth that it formerly did. No other detail of his life situating him so squarely in the modern age could have affected me as much as learning this. He typed Zarathustra? Goddamnit, the man had no more connection to the truth than a stenographer!

SHEILA How can these artists we read about—who have been married five or six times—how can they have enough time for all that life, and also make art? MARGAUX And have a heroin addiction?

There are so many things you can do with your body if you can let it relax and bend to the shape of the universe,

What a chicken I was. I couldn't bear any aspect of living. Especially that old custom: that you have to live a better life than everyone else.

To me it's also talking about how it's okay to have your own identity in the face of all this pressure to have some other identity.

Why are you all reading? I don't understand this reading business when there is so much fucking to be done.