Quotes from Lori Gottlieb

none of us can love and be loved without the possibility of loss but that there's a difference between knowledge and terror.

I also pepper our sessions with reports of what I've discovered in my daily Google-stalking: the women Boyfriend must be dating (based on elaborate stories I create from social media Likes); how fabulous his life is without me (based on his Tweets about his business trip); how he isn't even sad about the breakup (because he photographs salads in restaurants—how can he even eat?).

Quase' é sempre o mais difícil, não é?" disse, certa tarde. "Quase conseguir alguma coisa, quase ter um bebê, quase conseguir uma tomografia sem problemas, quase não ter mais câncer." Pensei em como muitas pessoas evitam tentar coisas que realmente querem na vida, por ser mais doloroso chegar perto do objetivo, mas não consegui-lo, do que nem chegar a arriscar.

There's no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn't be ranked, because pain is not a contest. Spouses often forget this, upping the ante on their suffering—I had the kids all day. My job is more demanding than yours. I'm lonelier than you are. Whose pain wins—or loses? But

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe succinctly summarized this sentiment: "Too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them.

this: "People will do anything, no matter how absurd

and listen so attentively to the details of your day that, like your personal biographer, he'll remember more about your life than you will.

What was helpful in getting to where the person is today? What wasn't? What has she learned about herself—her strengths, her challenges, her internal scripts and narratives—and what coping strategies and healthier ways of being can she take with her when she leaves?

because she wished most of all that her son's life could be easier for his sake, that he could live a fulfilling life,

Sometimes we imprison ourselves with a narrative of self-punishment.

Many of us torture ourselves over our mistakes for decades, even after we've genuinely attempted to make amends.

And you know what I'm going to miss most of all? His face. I'm going to miss looking at his beautiful face. It's my favorite face in the entire world.

When your mother emerges from her depression and suddenly seems interested in your days and acts the way you see other kids' moms acting, you don't dare feel joy because you know from experience that it will all go away. And it does. Every single time.

Each time, Rita was shocked to find herself alone, but her history didn't surprise me. We marry our unfinished business.

Not knowing is a good place to start," he says, and this feels like a revelation. I spend so much time trying to figure things out, chasing the answer, but it's okay to not know .

that toughest of tough questions: What do I owe my parents, and what do they owe me?

If something isn't working, do something different,

Sitting-with-you-in-your-pain is one of the rare experiences that people get in the protected space of a therapy room, but it's very hard to give or get outside of it—

Uncertainty, I'm starting to realize, doesn't mean the loss of hope – it means there's possibility. "I don't know what will happen next – how potentially exciting!" I'm going to have to figure out how to make the most of the life I have, illness or not, partner or not, the march of time notwithstanding.

We all have a deep yearning to understand ourselves and be understood. When I see couples in therapy, often one or the other will complain, not "you don't love me" but "you don't understand me

But . . . if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things . . . about Holland.

Sometimes the only thing to do is yell "Fuck!

change and loss travel together.

This stage [relapse] is hard because the behaviors people want to modify are embedded in the fabric of their lives; people with addiction issues (whether that addiction is to a substance, drama, negativity, or self-defeating ways of being) tend to hang out with other addicts.