Quotes About Ambivalence

Kai groaned under his breath. He had been hoping for one dramatic masterstroke that would take down the whole bridge and maybe make him feel better about his continued existence.

Moon didn't find any of this very encouraging

While being eaten would end all his problems, he wasn't quite ready for so final a solution.

looks promising and I've taken it up again on occasion. But whenever I did, I realized why I'd not carried on in the first place – in the same way that a specialist might say of a child, that one's not going to grow up right. I could tell that it wouldn't develop into a finished picture.

Antoine n'avait pas pu être alcoolique. Il prit comme remède de substitution la résolution de se suicider. Être alcoolique avait été sa dernière ambition d'intégration sociale, se donner la mort était l'ultime moyen qu'il voyait pour participer au monde. ("Comment devenir stupide", p41)

Give me chastity and continence, but not yet

Mediocrity inspires neither great love nor hate.

I hated that I found him—appealing. Not just his appearance, but the confidence of his strides, the calculations in his gaze, his cockiness, his damned voice. I hated the ridiculous flip-flop my stomach did just now when I caught him looking at me.

Children who are grieving the loss of a former attachment, or are displaying ambivalence or resistance toward their adoptive parents, do not suddenly bond. Attachment doesn't just happen; it grows. How quickly depends on a number of factors, including the number and quality of prior attachments; parenting strategies; age; and the severity of pre-placement neglect or other forms of abuse. Any prognosis is at best an educated guess.

The idea of my future simultaneously thrilled and terrified me, like standing at the lip of a very sheer cliff- I could fly, or fall. I didn't know how to fly, and I didn't want to fall. So I backed away from the cliff and went in search of something that had a clear, solid trajectory for me to follow, like hopscotch.

Yo la amaba, e incluso amándola al revés, no llegaba a detestarla.

Ah, Officer Orcot…what am I going to do about you? I do enjoy your company. One of these days, I may not let you leave.

Qué raro es que a veces deseas algo, como ver la nieve, y al día siguiente deseas que desparezca, ¿verdad?

That was how she had felt most of her life. Caught in the middle. Struggling, flailing, just trying to survive while not knowing which way to go. Which path to commit to without regret.

Sometimes things are a change for the better and the worse at the same time, like the internet. Or the electric keyboard. Or pre-chopped garlic. Or the theory of relativity.

I may have not been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't.

Maybe even suicide would have been too active. Maybe in some lives you just float around and expect nothing else and don't even try to change. Maybe that was most lives.

Maybe in some lives you just float around and expect nothing else and don't even try to change.

She had a fire inside her. She wondered if the fire was to warm her or destroy her.

The funny thing about stop signs is that they're also start signs.

In this transgression, one does not know who is engulfing and who is engulfed.

Melanie Klein had distinguished the concept of ambivalence from that of ambiguity. Ambivalence is where the subject makes two alternative images for the same being; alternatives that are not seen as representing the same object. Ambiguity is an adult concept. The subject perceives two images, but he knows that they apply to the same object.

I didn't want to love him, but I didn't want him not to love me.

He's as ambivalent about raising a family as I am, but he'll do it because I asked him to. And until now, I tried convincing myself that it was the praiseworthy decision. But is it the right choice for the babies? For Ram? For me? But I'm not supposed to think about what's best for me, am I?