Judith Guest

“And what about tomorrow then? And all the tomorrows to come? Why can't we talk about it? Why can't we ever talk about it?”

“...it is love, imperfect and unordered, that keeps them apart, even as it holds them somehow together...”

“Everything seems excessive, now, and too intense, too important.”

“People use people according to their own needs. Or don't use them. When a primary need is one of safety.”

“Life is not a series of pathetic, meaningles actions. Some of them are so far from pathetic, so far from meaningless as to be beyond reason, maybe beyond forgiveness.”

“Depending on the reality one must face, one may prefer to opt for illusion.”

“She hands him his coffee; crosses to the doorway; motes of dust flutter nervously in her wake.”

“The small seed of despair cracks open and sends experimental tendrils upward to the fragile skin of calm holding him together.”

“People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile.”

“Feeling is not selective, I keep telling you that. You can’t feel pain, you aren’t gonna feel anything else, either.”

“Riding the train gives him too much time to think, he has decided. Too much thinking can ruin you.”

“Make notes—I’ve lost more material than I’ve ever written. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not still up there in one’s brain. It’s in outer space and it ain’t coming back.”

“I keep telling you that feeling is not selective. You can't feel pain, you aren't gonna feel anything else either.”

“. . . crazy world or maybe it's just the view we have of it, looking through a crack in the door, never being able to see the whole room, the whole picture.”

“Depression is not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling.”

“Eyes closed a knee in his back hand at his neck forcing his face into the floor of the elevator rough under his cheek smell of vomit and matted fur "God don't hurt me" struggles against indignity his pajamas pulled down around his knees a needle sunk deep into his thigh twists moans and all of it loose like water flowing salt tickles inner edges of his eyes into his mouth twists onto his back arms over his head raw wails of anguish break off in pieces hurt his ears "Baby it's okay" Leo is over him lifts coaxing "Let's get up off the floor huh?" arm around his waist sags heavy his wrist aches where Leo holds him dragged along the watery dark he rolls off Leo's shoulder to the bed eyes closed hands folded in prayer between his legs can't look "God don't hurt me. Please.”

“To have a reason to get up in the morning, it is necessary to have some kind of guiding principle. A belief of some kind”