1.
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.
Judith Guest
2.
Depression is not sobbing and crying and giving vent, it is plain and simple reduction of feeling.
Judith Guest
3.
And if you ever do a survey, you'll find that people prefer illusion to reality, ten to one. Twenty, even.
Judith Guest
4.
People that keep stiff upper lips find that it's hard to smile.
Judith Guest
5.
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.
Judith Guest
6.
Autonomy is the whole thing; it's what unhappy people are missing. They have given the power to run their lives to other people.
Judith Guest
7.
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.
Judith Guest
8.
Writers don't write to inform other people, they write to find out something themselves.
Judith Guest
9.
Feeling is not selective, I keep telling you that. You can’t feel pain, you aren’t gonna feel anything else, either.
Judith Guest
10.
Make peace with what is.
Judith Guest
11.
I think living the blessed life is the luck of the draw.
Judith Guest
12.
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?
Judith Guest
13.
I've never been one to tear the social fabric.
Judith Guest
14.
Depending on the reality one must face, one may prefer to opt for illusion.
Judith Guest
15.
For me being depressed means you can spend all day in bed, and still not get a good night's rest.
Judith Guest
16.
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.
Judith Guest
17.
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.
Judith Guest
18.
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.
Judith Guest
19.
I am also working on a couple of short stories for anthologies. This is new to me and Im enjoying it.
Judith Guest
20.
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!
Judith Guest
21.
Ours was not a political household, when I was growing up.
Judith Guest
22.
The 'creator' and the 'editor' - two halves of the writer whole - should sleep in separate rooms.
Judith Guest
23.
My success is not who I am.
Judith Guest
24.
It's true that every day away from work requires two more days to get back into it.
Judith Guest
25.
Jesus but people got weird when they lived alone.
Judith Guest
26.
Don't put anyone out of your heart, there's room for all.
Judith Guest
27.
You have to live your life according to what comforts you, not what the rest of your family thinks you ought to be doing.
Judith Guest
28.
With my friends, I don't feel pressure to be someone other than who I am.
Judith Guest
29.
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.
Judith Guest
30.
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.
Judith Guest
31.
Always good to have one crazy in the family ... It takes the pressure off everybody else.
Judith Guest
32.
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
Judith Guest
33.
. . . 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.
Judith Guest
34.
The small seed of despair cracks open and sends experimental tendrils upward to the fragile skin of calm holding him together.
Judith Guest
35.
Riding the train gives him too much time to think, he has decided. Too much thinking can ruin you.
Judith Guest
36.
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.
Judith Guest
37.
... the monotonous beauty of wealth.
Judith Guest
38.
I can write for a long time on one novel and not get tired.
Judith Guest
39.
...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.
Judith Guest