Everybody is dealing with how much of their own aliveness they can bear and how much they need to anesthetize themselves.
ADAM PHILLIPSEverybody is dealing with how much of their own aliveness they can bear and how much they need to anesthetize themselves.
ADAM PHILLIPSLovers, of course, are notoriously frantic epistemologists, second only to paranoiacs (and analysts) as readers of signs and wonders.
ADAM PHILLIPSWe are tyrannized by our blind spots, and by whatever it is about ourselves that we find unacceptable.
ADAM PHILLIPSTo keep faith with recognition we have to stay recognizable.
ADAM PHILLIPSSanity, in other words, becomes a pressing preoccupation as soon as we recognize the importance of recognition.
ADAM PHILLIPSWe have been taught to wish for it, but the wish to be understood may be our most vengeful demand, may be the way we hang on, as adults ,
ADAM PHILLIPSwe are continually under threat from what we are unwilling and/or unable to see.
ADAM PHILLIPSThere is nothing more terrorizing than the possibility that nothing is hidden.
ADAM PHILLIPSSanity, as the project of keeping ourselves recognizably human, therefore has to limit the range of human experience.
ADAM PHILLIPSThere is nothing more scandalous than a happy marriage
ADAM PHILLIPSI am always true to myself, that is the problem. Who else could I be true to?
ADAM PHILLIPSThere is always a ..belief that by destroying the thing that we love we destroy our needs
ADAM PHILLIPSTransgression is a quest for solitude
ADAM PHILLIPSExcesses of appetite are self-cures for feelings of hopelessness. ..
ADAM PHILLIPSMonogamy is a way of getting the versions of ourselves down to the minimum.
ADAM PHILLIPSThe child [uses] ‘doubt about food to hide doubt about love.’
ADAM PHILLIPS