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Book: The Friend
Quotes of Book: The Friend
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  1. Sigrid Nunez _ The Friend

    Whenever he saw his books in a store, he felt like he'd gotten away with something, said John Updike. Who also expressed the opinion that a nice person wouldn't become a writer. The problem of self-doubt. The problem of shame. The problem of self-loathing. You once put it like this: When I get so fed up with something I'm writing that I decide to quit, and then, later, I find myself irresistibly drawn back to it, I always think: Like a dog to its vomit."
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  2. Sigrid Nunez _ The Friend

    They don't want to see me lose my home. They want me to come to my senses before it's too late. I need a better way to cope with my feelings of loss and guilt. I need bereavement therapy. Here are some names. I should think about medication. Here's what worked for them. There are books. There are websites. There are support groups. Healing won't come from withdrawing into a fantasy world, isolating myself, spending all my time with a dog. There is such a thing as pathological grief. There is the magical thinking of pathological grief, which is a kind of dementia. Which in their collective opinion is what I have.
    book-quotegrieflosshealing

  3. Sigrid Nunez _ The Friend

    A friend of mine who is working on a memoir says, I hate the idea of writing as some kind of catharsis, because it seems like that can't possibly produce a good book.You cannot hope to console yourself for your grief by writing, warns Natalia Ginzburg.Turn then to Isak Dinesen, who believed that you could make any sorrow bearable by putting into into a story or telling a story about it."
    book-quotewritinggriefloss

  4. Sigrid Nunez _ The Friend

    I confess to sudden rages. Walking in Midtown, rush hour's peak, people streaming in both directions, I find myself seething, ready to kill. Who are all these fucking people, and how is it fair, how is it even possible that all of them, these perfectly ordinary people, should be alive, when --
    book-quotelifedeathgrief

  5. Sigrid Nunez _ The Friend

    I've known plenty of women who brace themselves whenever they leave the house, even a few who try to avoid leaving the house. Of course, a woman has only to wait until she's a certain age, when she becomes invisible, and-problem solved.
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  6. Sigrid Nunez _ The Friend

    You caught some flak for questioning whether there could really be such a thing as a flâneuse. You didn't think it was possible for a woman to wander the streets in the same spirit and manner as a man. A female pedestrian was subject to constant disruptions: stares, comments, catcalls, gropes. A woman was raised to be always on guard: Was this guy walking too close? Was that guy following her? How, then, could she ever relax enough to experience the loss of sense of self, the
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  7. Sigrid Nunez _ The Friend

    To draw me out, the therapist asks what I did for the holidays. When I tell him he says gently {he says everything gently}, Sounds like that's one of the ways your loss has affected you: not wanting to be with other people. Hating to be with other people, I don't say. Terrified of being with other people.
    book-quotegrieflossloneliness

  8. Sigrid Nunez _ The Friend

    I like that the Aborigines say dogs make people human
    book-quotedogspets

  9. Sigrid Nunez _ The Friend

    What exactly did Simone Weil mean when she said, When you have to make a decision in life, about what you should do, do what will cost you the most.Do what is difficult because it is difficult. Do what will cost you the most. Who these people?
    book-quotelifedifficultydecisions

  10. Sigrid Nunez _ The Friend

    What we miss - what we lose and what we mourn - isn't it this that makes us who, deep down, we truly are.
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  11. Sigrid Nunez _ The Friend

    I believe the intensity of the pity you feel for an animal has to do with how it evokes pity for yourself.... Innocence is something we humans pass through and leave behind, unable to return. But animals live and die in that state, and seeing innocence violated in the form of cruelty to a mere duck can seem like the most barbaric act in the world.
    book-quotepitycrueltyanimals

  12. Sigrid Nunez _ The Friend

    Rather than write about what you know, you told us, write about what you Assume that you know very little and that you'll never know much until you learn how to see.
    book-quotewritingknowledgeseeing
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