Quote collection
34 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I've been thinking about disowning some of my genes lately. I have a few healthy, happy, long-living optimists in my family tree - most of them fans of Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy, a major champion of positive thinking. But I've got plenty of ancestors who played out more tortured hands."
"The first person who ever told me that happiness was work was this manic-depressive artist I knew when I was in my 20s. I was like, 'What are you talking about? Happiness just happens. That's even the root of that word. How could it be work?"
"The last introvert in a world of extroverts. Silence: my response to both emptiness and saturation. But silence frightens people. I had to learn how to talk. Out of politeness."
"I think there are different kinds of happiness. We know when we're happy a lot of the time, but then there are those moments that have more of an afterglow, when the happiness has more depth."
"When we strike a balance between the challenge of an activity and our skill at performing it, when the rhythm of the work itself feels in sync with our pulse, when we know that what we're doing matters, we can get totally absorbed in our task. That is happiness."
"I don't know if my mother was a narcissist - or bi-polar or borderline. Those were words she tossed around over the years."
"Conventional wisdom tells us we'll only be happier after a divorce if the marriage itself was a war zone."
"A lot of women make choices based on how they saw their mother's choices working out, how they saw the choices of the women elders in their lives working out. There's some rebellion in that, but there's also some deep reflection."
"I've never been socially outgoing, but I suspect I've gotten more and more ambivalent about making new friends. I'm irritated by how-do-you-do chit-chat, but that's how new relationships usually begin."
"It is a great paradox and a great injustice that writers write because we fear death and want to leave something indestructible in our wake and, at the same time, are drawn to all the things that kill: whiskey and cigarettes, unprotected sex, and deep-fried burritos."
"If you need help or advice, ask for it, but don't worry too much about hurting other people's feelings by not doing what they say. If your gut says no, trust it. Do what seems right."
"Before I published anything, I dreamed of publication, but I didn't actually write for it. I imagined that writing for an audience was something for fancier people. I aspired, but mostly I wrote for myself. I wrote because it made me happy."
"With each beat, the heart pumps nearly three ounces of blood into the arteries--seventy-five to ninety gallons an hour when the body is at rest."
"A lot of positive psychology is stuck in being the psychology of privilege, and I reject that."
"Maybe it goes without saying that if you want to become a famous writer before you’re dead, you’ll have to write something. But the folks in my classes with the biggest ideas and the best publicity shots ready to grace the back covers of their best-selling novels are also usually the ones who aren’t holding any paper."
"In our cultural history, all emotions have been more culturally acceptable to women."
"Some caregivers want to reciprocate the care they themselves received as children."
"Researchers warn us against walking out on married life without a dang good reason."
"One thing that blocks flow is self-consciousness."
"Everything is freedom and everything is loneliness. Make your choice and let the rest fall away."