“Transgression is a quest for solitude”

When we define ourselves by what we can recognize, by what we can comprehend- rather than, say, by what we can describe

There is always a ..belief that by destroying the thing that we love we destroy our needs

Excesses of appetite are self-cures for feelings of hopelessness. ..

The whole notion of sanity may be an attempt to medicalize morality – to speak of the good in the language of health: to make us more accurate, more scientific in our wanting – but by the same token it becomes a form of moral blackmail.

Tragic heroes are failed pragmatists. Their ends are unrealistic and their means are impractical.

Wanting to be understood, as adults, can be our most violent form of nostalgia.

Believing in religion is like believing that adulthood is the solution to childhood.

We are at our most stupid in our self-hatred.

We 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 ,

One thing you discover in psychoanalytic treatment is the limits of what you can change about yourself or your life.

There is nothing more scandalous than a happy marriage

To keep faith with recognition we have to stay recognizable.

The past influences everything and dictates nothing.

There is nothing more terrorizing than the possibility that nothing is hidden.

Monogamy is a way of getting the versions of ourselves down to the minimum.

Sanity, as the project of keeping ourselves recognizably human, therefore has to limit the range of human experience.