Everybody 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.
More Adam Phillips Quotes
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There is always a ..belief that by destroying the thing that we love we destroy our needs
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I am always true to myself, that is the problem. Who else could I be true to?
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Lovers, of course, are notoriously frantic epistemologists, second only to paranoiacs (and analysts) as readers of signs and wonders.
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Transgression is a quest for solitude
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People change, but there really are limits.
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We are children for a very long time.
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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.
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One thing you discover in psychoanalytic treatment is the limits of what you can change about yourself or your life.
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The child [uses] ‘doubt about food to hide doubt about love.’
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To our grudge against our mothers; the way we never let our mothers off the hook for their not meeting our every need.
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There is nothing more terrorizing than the possibility that nothing is hidden.
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Sanity, in other words, becomes a pressing preoccupation as soon as we recognize the importance of recognition.
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Wanting to be understood, as adults, can be our most violent form of nostalgia.
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The vocabulary of one’s self-criticism is so impoverished and clichéd.
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Tragic heroes are failed pragmatists. Their ends are unrealistic and their means are impractical.
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