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9dd5c68
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The goal was to get sane, to get whole, to be complete enough to support someone else.
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Emma Forrest |
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539501f
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We're born alone and we die alone, but we get to travel with people along the way, and if you get lucky, you have a worthy consort.
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love
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Emma Forrest |
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3ee0915
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I think I've lost my faith and I can't stop writing because I don't know how much longer I can hold on.
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writing
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Emma Forrest |
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10a5709
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When he asked if he was mine, tears in his eyes, I think he knew what he would do, what he would have to do, and he was mourning us. He was mourning us the whole time.
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love
love-loss
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Emma Forrest |
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940791d
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It took a long time, but my heart now feels full when I think of him. When you fall in love again--which I have--it's funny the other things that come back in with that open-ness. You have this ghost chorus of the lovers who came before, but they're benign now, they're good spirits.
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Emma Forrest |
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8452523
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At the exit, they sell home-made soap with the evil eye attached, to protect yourself from people who'd wish you ill. I buy one, wondering, How do you hang it inside yourself?
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Emma Forrest |
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a095135
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In hindsight, I have no idea why he was ever with me. He thought highly of my breasts. And . . . that's it, I think.
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men
relationships
love
love-humor
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Emma Forrest |
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6b2527f
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You do it how you can do it, so long as it's getting done, you're okay.
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life
inspirational
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Emma Forrest |
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d6c5786
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my quirks had gone beyond eccentricity, past the warm waters of weird to those cold, deep patches of sea where people lose their lives.
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Emma Forrest |
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c8414ff
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He meant everything he said, when he said it. But this is his default. And it won out. Right now you're depressed about one thing. Before you were depressed about everything. These are good times for you." "I'm afraid of loving again. I'm afraid I've lost my faith." "You haven't." "The trapdoor I have in my mind? That can go to those bad places? It's almost gave way again." "You know the ways to keep it nailed shut."
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depression
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Emma Forrest |
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37c0577
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Dr. R scratches out a note on his pad. "Losing you both was only the practice pain, wasn't it? For my mum and dad..." He puts his finger on his lips, his elbow at his chest, not racked with cancer. "Yes." "And when that happens, this will seem like nothing." He nods. "When it happens," he asks me, "what will get you through?" "Friends who love me." "And if your friends weren't there?" "Music through headphones." "And if the music stopped?" ..
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Emma Forrest |
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5df6408
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I don't want to go to university. I don't like unity and I hate verses. I just love the choruses of songs.
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Emma Forrest |
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0adf182
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We all perform. It's what we do for each other all the time, deliberately or unintentionally. It's a way of telling about ourselves in the hope of being recognized as what we'd like to be.
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Emma Forrest |
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4f27dcc
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Hotel rooms are funny things. They make everything look different. If people have to sleep with each other, sexually or platonically, they should do it in kitchens. The kitchen is the epicenter of truth in any home or building. You could never misconstrue a look or a word or a touch in the icy cool, compartmentalized presence of a fridge.
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Emma Forrest |
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91d1a9f
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When I come home from school, I take my Doc Martens off and put on fake satin mules with the marabou trim, slip into my dressing gown and my movie, and I feel serene. I hold a glass of Coke to my cheek and pretend it is a glass of bourbon and I am in New Orleans. My bedroom door is the doorway onto the street and at night I can't sleep because of the heat and the commotion in this town. So I go down to the river and dance as a man with scar..
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Emma Forrest |
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b48431a
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There's a boy whose affection I am determined to hunt down and kill. It used to be material objects I felt I needed to be happy. It would make me feel stable if I had him. If I had someone like him, it would prove that I'm stable, and then I wouldn't have to do the work to get there. I am constantly looking for ways to cede control of my worries to someone, anyone.
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sanity
love
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Emma Forrest |
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ae5acd7
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No one knows we're there, no one sees us. We never leave the room. I think about the secret voice you use when you make love. No one but that person will ever hear it. And here, we listen to each other, but we lock it in with touch, and the room vacuum seals it to stay fresh until we can breathe together again. When he breaks the silence it is to say, "I want you to know that, when you get pregnant, nothing is going to change except your dr..
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love-making
pregnancy
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Emma Forrest |
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8076e7a
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In the grip of madness, materialism begins to look like an admirable belief system.
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Emma Forrest |
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025e1c2
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Since I'm a cat who doesn't know what I am, I wear track pants with old-skool Nikes but Gina Lollobrigida skintight sweaters. I am caught between childhood and va-va-voom.
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Emma Forrest |
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b89d444
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There is something deeply unsettling about a child crying insincerely.
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Emma Forrest |
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8dc3429
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Accepting the presidency, Barack introduces "my best friend of sixteen years, the love of my life, Michelle Obama" and I think I will pass out. That, right there, is love in action."
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love
president
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Emma Forrest |
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4e3e315
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I win, and we discover that when men peer into a car that is blasting "True Faith" on the outskirts of San Franscisco, they are disappointed to see three women."
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Emma Forrest |
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302d503
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And if you don't know who you are, or if your real self has drifted away from you with the undertow, madness at least gives you an identity.
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Emma Forrest |
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ae6e39a
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Now here I am, seventeen with a bullet.
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Emma Forrest |
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0c3dfc7
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I thought of him, with his feet in the Chateau Marmont pool and his fork in a carrot cake. He was just a little kid. I was upset at what I had introduced him to, the records and films he didn't already know. I felt like a mother who had left syringes around the room and let her baby get hooked on hard drugs.
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Emma Forrest |
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93711b8
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Funny. The blazer, skirt and tie become automatically sexy the minute you leave school when you're eighteen or nineteen and pull it out for fancy-dress parties. But whilst you're still there, stewing through Math, unable to find anyone who'll let you sit next to them in the cafeteria, crying in the toilet stalls, you know what it represents and you can't bring yourself to make it look alluring. That would be traitorous and phoney. I knew I ..
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Emma Forrest |
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8bf1ad5
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Have you ever eaten something appalling for breakfast, something really bad for you, a chocolate cake, and just thought, "Fuck it, this is bad, I'd better keep going? Christ, this is making me feel horrible, I'd better have more?"
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Emma Forrest |
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031d368
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People can only do what they can do.
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Emma Forrest |