Quotes from Lori Gottlieb

Of course, I thought. Unavailable. Just Charlotte's type. Charlotte, in fact, had used that same expresion every time she mentioned the Dude. He's so my typo. What most people mean by type is a sense of attraction- a type of physical appearance or a type personality turns them on, But what underlies a person's type, in fact, is a sense o familiarity.

You can have compassion without forgiving. There are many ways to move on and pretending to feel a certain way isn't one of them.

I try to wrap my mind around this paradox: self-sabotage as a form of control. If I screw up my life, I can engineer my own death rather than have it happen to me. If I stay in a doomed relationship, if I mess up my career, if I hide in fear instead of facing what's wrong with my body, I can create a living death — but one where I call the shots.

They wish they could stay longer but don't know how to say this directly. Acknowledging their attachment makes them feel too vulnerable.

I told Greenwald that I didn't consider these factors when I was ten years younger and waiting for just the right guy to pop into my life. It seemed reasonable to think that the longer I searched, the better the guy I'd end up with. But it's faulty logic, she said: The longer you wait, the less likely you are to find someone better than you've already met.

You are not the best person to talk to you about you right now.

Una revisión de la literatura relevante demuestra que la felicidad es estadísticamente anormal,

There's a popular saying, a paraphrase from a Robert Frost poem: "The only way out is through." The only way to get to the other side of the tunnel is to go through it, not around it. But I can't even picture the entrance right now.

I'm mindful of the fact that Very Angry People aren't Very Approachable.

But sometimes without realizing it, we are choosing to be in relationships with people who fit into an old story, or we are choosing to respond to them based on an unhealthy script.

In fact, Wendell continues, I've lost more than my relationship in the present. I've lost my relationship in the future. We tend to think that the future happens later, but we're creating it in our minds every day. When the present falls apart, so does the future we had associated with it. And having the future taken away is the mother of all plot twists. But if we spend the present trying to fix the past or control the future, we remain stuck in place, in perpetual regret.

people didn't use extra time earned to relax or connect with friends or family. Instead, they tried to cram more in.

But John often took note of my appearance: "Now you're looking more like a real mistress" (when I got highlights in my hair); "You better watch out, some people might see some cleavage" (when I wore a V-neck blouse); "Are those your fuck-me shoes for after work?" (when I wore heels). Each time, I'd try to talk about his "jokes" and the feelings underlying them.

underneath the old mother-daughter frustration was not a wish for her to go away but a longing for her to stay forever?

Reacting vs. responding = reflexive vs. chosen.

we both know in a bone-deep way that there's nothing else to say.

It's only in silence that people can truly hear themselves. ... Even great joy is sometimes best expressed through silence.

Even though I'm the one who should be holding her hand, even though she's the one with the missing appendages and a massive infection, she's reassuring me. And though this could make a great story line on ER, in that millisecond, I know I won't be working on that show much longer. I am going to medical school.

Cuando caes en la compasión del idiota, evitas agitar las aguas para no lastimar a otra persona, aunque las aguas necesiten ser agitadas y tu compasión acabe resultando más perjudicial que tu sinceridad.

transition back to the world outside? The second people felt alone, I noticed, usually in the space between things — leaving a therapy session, at a red light, standing in a checkout line, riding the elevator — they picked up devices and ran away from that feeling. In a state of perpetual distraction, they seemed to be losing the ability to be with others and losing their ability to be with themselves.

This was grief: You laugh. You cry. Repeat.

In reaction formation, unacceptable feelings or impulses are expressed as their opposite, as when a person who dislikes her neighbor goes out of her way to befriend her or when an evangelical Christian man who's attracted to men makes homophobic slurs.

As the late psychotherapist John Weakland famously said, "Before successful therapy, it's the same damn thing over and over. After

Late-in-life love has the benefit of being especially forgiving, generous, sensitive — and urgent.