To grow up is to discover what one is unequal to.
ADAM PHILLIPSTo grow up is to discover what one is unequal to.
ADAM PHILLIPSWhen we define ourselves by what we can recognize, by what we can comprehend- rather than, say, by what we can describe
ADAM PHILLIPSWe are at our most stupid in our self-hatred.
ADAM PHILLIPSSanity, in other words, becomes a pressing preoccupation as soon as we recognize the importance of recognition.
ADAM PHILLIPSSanity, as the project of keeping ourselves recognizably human, therefore has to limit the range of human experience.
ADAM PHILLIPSExcesses of appetite are self-cures for feelings of hopelessness. ..
ADAM PHILLIPSPeople change, but there really are limits.
ADAM PHILLIPSWanting to be understood, as adults, can be our most violent form of nostalgia.
ADAM PHILLIPSThere is always a ..belief that by destroying the thing that we love we destroy our needs
ADAM PHILLIPSTo keep faith with recognition we have to stay recognizable.
ADAM PHILLIPSThe child..will try to make himself..independent of other people. .
ADAM PHILLIPSWe are children for a very long time.
ADAM PHILLIPSThe child [uses] ‘doubt about food to hide doubt about love.’
ADAM PHILLIPSThere is nothing more terrorizing than the possibility that nothing is hidden.
ADAM PHILLIPSThe 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.
ADAM PHILLIPSOne thing you discover in psychoanalytic treatment is the limits of what you can change about yourself or your life.
ADAM PHILLIPS