Judith Guest Quotes

Geez, if I could get through to you, kiddo, that depression is not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling. Reduction, see? Of all feeling. People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile.

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

And if you ever do a survey, you'll find that people prefer illusion to reality, ten to one. Twenty, even.

People that keep stiff upper lips find that it's hard to smile.

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.

Autonomy is the whole thing; it's what unhappy people are missing. They have given the power to run their lives to other people.

Some people have an unrealistic expectation when it comes to getting published; the fact is most publishers will turn down your work which is why you need to be persistent.

Writers don't write to inform other people, they write to find out something themselves.

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

Make peace with what is.

I think living the blessed life is the luck of the draw.

Two separate, distinct personalities, not separate at all, but inextricably bound, soul and body and mind, to each other, how did we get so far apart so fast?

I've never been one to tear the social fabric.

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

For me being depressed means you can spend all day in bed, and still not get a good night's rest.

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.

And do not be paralyzed. It is better to move than to be unable to move, because you fear loss so much: loss of order, loss of security, loss of predictability.

Some people with awful cards can be successful because of how they deal with the tragedies they're handed, and that seems courageous to me.

I am also working on a couple of short stories for anthologies. This is new to me and Im enjoying it.

I notice when I'm on these trips, I read like mad. It's the only thing that seems to center me, bring me back to remembering who I am. Or forgetting who I am!

Ours was not a political household, when I was growing up.

The 'creator' and the 'editor' - two halves of the writer whole - should sleep in separate rooms.

My success is not who I am.

It's true that every day away from work requires two more days to get back into it.

Jesus but people got weird when they lived alone.

Don't put anyone out of your heart, there's room for all.

You have to live your life according to what comforts you, not what the rest of your family thinks you ought to be doing.

With my friends, I don't feel pressure to be someone other than who I am.

Haven't lost your sense of humor after all but your sense of identity is what seems to have been misplaced. No. Wrong. You don't lose what you never had.

Sometimes you are being interviewed by someone and you think, if I knew this person they'd be my best friend. Other times you're being interviewed by a complete jerk.

Always good to have one crazy in the family ... It takes the pressure off everybody else.

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

. . . 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.

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

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

It's always obvious to me when someone is looking at me with an idea of who I am and hoping that that's the person I'm going to be. No matter how subtle it is, it's there, and you want to give them who they really want. But it ain't me.

... the monotonous beauty of wealth.

I can write for a long time on one novel and not get tired.

...let the emotional weight of a scene rest on the dialogue wherever possible. This is the easy way to avoid overinterpretation, which seems to be what turns a scene from sympathetic to sentimental.