I was seventy-six in April, and the reason for my relative longevity is that I never take any legal drugs — except a few months ago. I was at a party, and I took an aspirin. I didn't even have a headache. I just gave in to peer pressure. —Paul Krassner More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
How can one accept — let alone enjoy — aging in a culture where God is twenty-five; where advertisements are filled with twenty-somethings in halter tops and tight t-shirts, unless the ad is for a drug to treat incontinence, high blood pressure, or elevated cholesterol? What about the wisdom of age? What about endurance? What about the beauty of a face etched by years that were not always easy? —Genie Zeiger More about this quote Tags: God easy wisdom acceptance beauty aging age youth incontinence Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Death is not the greatest fear. Neither is loss. Living is. —Joel Peckham More about this quote Tags: fear living death loss Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I can't count the number of times I have officially assembled the equipment to take my life: a knife, a handgun, a plastic bag, a bottle of codeine and a fifth of vodka. My motivations are never quite clear: perception of failure, futility, a sense of irremediable isolation, mtv — nothing everyone else hasn't suffered through. Yet I tend to magnify my gloomy outlook into a drive-in picture of the end of the world. I can't seem to remember that despair is a temporary state, a dark storm along the highway; that if I can just stick it out, keep the wipers going and my foot on the gas, I will make it through to the other side. —Poe Ballantine More about this quote Tags: failure despair suicide isolation futility temporary Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Ever since I was a little kid, I've had trouble with transitions. I don't mean the usual life transitions of birth, death, divorce, moving — everyone has trouble with those. No, I mean the little transitions, like the one between waking up and putting my feet on the floor. Or between turning off the car and going into the house. Or between getting out of the shower and getting dressed. You can see why life has been very, very hard for me. —Alison Luterman More about this quote Tags: life death birth divorce transitions moving Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Will is the means by which we overcome the problems that life or genes have handed us. Without it, there is no true character. —Jacob Needleman More about this quote Tags: life character will problems overcoming Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Marriage is a perilous and fearful effort, it seems to me. . . . It creates pain that it is the only cure for. It is the only comfort for its hardships. . . . Though we had our troubles, we had them in a true perspective. The universe, as we could see any night, is unimaginably large, and mostly empty, and mostly dark. We knew we needed to be together more than we needed to be apart. —Wendell Berry More about this quote Tags: fear perspective pain marriage comfort Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
There is no democracy in any love relation: only mercy. —Gillian Rose More about this quote Tags: love relationships democracy mercy Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I can see from your utter misery, from your eagerness to misunderstand each other, and from your thoroughly bad temper that this is the real thing. —Peter Ustinov More about this quote Tags: misery eagerness temper Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Love opens the doors into everything . . . including, and perhaps most of all, the door into one's own secret, and often terrible and frightening, real self. —May Sarton More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
My experience of a relationship is two people more or less compulsively playing musical chairs with each other's selected inner archetypes. My tough street kid is romancing your honky-tonk angel. I am your homeless waif and you are my loving mother. I am your lost father and you are my doting daughter. I am your worshiper and you are my goddess. I am your god and you are my priestess. I am your client and you are my analyst. I am your intensity and you are my ground. These are some of the more garish of the patterns. Animus, anima, bopping on a seesaw. —Michael Ventura More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began. —Leo Tolstoy More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Perhaps that is what love is: the momentary or prolonged refusal to think of another person in terms of power. —Phyllis Rose More about this quote Tags: love power Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
The sign of a good marriage is that everything is debatable and challenged; nothing is turned into law or policy. The rules, if any, are known only to the two players, who seek no public trophies. —Carolyn G. Heilbrun More about this quote Tags: relationships law equality marriage victory challenge debate policy trophies Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Flesh goes on pleasuring us, and humiliating us, right to the end. —Mignon McLaughlin More about this quote Tags: pleasure body flesh humiliation Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email