Quotes About Author

Somehow, instead of holding on to the lifelong identity that was slipping away from him, he managed to redefine it. He moved his line in the sand. This is what it means to have autonomy—you may not control life's circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them. The

after pondering suicide, Goodman called Neff at his office.

but I began to have doubts about pulling out the screw.

Felix Silverstone, who for twenty-four years was the senior geriatrician at the Parker Jewish Institute

At any rate it seems unlikely that there is any truth in the rumour as I have just this moment invented it.

Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.

The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children.

We were like starving women who come to believe that food will cure all present pains, as well as heal all the deficiency sores of long standing.

this action was a kind of shift from safety towards self-preservation. It was a choice of pains. That's what living was all about.

That really is the worst revenge you can take, for there's nothing he loathes more than magnanimity. KURT

CAPTAIN. America? That's a pretty dreadful place, isn't it? Nothing but rednecks! KURT [gloomily]. Well, it's not Copenhagen. ALICE

He continues to smile expectantly. I take a step back. I don't want to catch whatever he has. He is a disturbing out-of-uniform Santa.

My brother was born without taste or the desire to be professionally lit.

The only other people who have had experiences similar to those of this man were locked up inside institutions for the criminally insane. The difference is, this guy gets business cards.

One thing was certain: I would be in their Tang commercial. And if any of the other children tried to get in the way, I would use my pencil to blind them

In the middle of the conversation, I open a third ale. I cup my hand over the mouthpiece so they don't hear the tab of the ale being popped. It dawns on me that this is a slightly contrary action. Like stopping into Baby Gap before having an abortion.

She was a rare psychotic-confessional-poet strain of salmonella.

One of the things I liked about her [Dorothy] was that she had long fingernails that she would carefully manicure and paint to fit her mood. If she were in a happy mood, her nails would be bright red. If she were feeling like she wanted to eviscerate her mother she would paint her nails burgundy.

I understood that I was clearly insane. But he apparently hadn't picked up on how many times in one short letter I asserted that I was not. This acceptance of my questionable mental health made me feel confident that we would be compatible, possibly for life. I

The shame is disguised here as helpful. But both people in this conversation would know it was bullying.

I hate when you play therapist. Especially with your accent. It makes everything you say sound so BBC.

Shame is the landfill emotion. It's not organic, like joy. It was dumped there by somebody else.

For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.

Great idea, I said. Call the police. Call the fucking police.