Home / Books / Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

Book by Adam Phillips · 4 quotes · Frustration, Desire, Love

Browse quotes from Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life.

Book detail: Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.

Browse quotes from Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life.

The quotes below use the same card format as the rest of the site, including topics, source notes, copy actions, image creation, and sharing controls.

Filter quotes by topic

All Frustration Desire Love Transference Want Absence Bicycle Dream Familiar Fantasy Freud Getting It Idealism Knowing Knowing Others Longing Madness Missing Someone Mothers Nostalgia

Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life Quotes

“In Freud’s story our possibilities for satisfaction depend upon our capacity for frustration; if we can’t let ourselves feel our frustration – and, surprisingly, this is a surprisingly difficult thing to do – we can’t get a sense of what it is we might be wanting, and missing, of what might really give us pleasure.”

Want Desire Pleasure Frustration

Book:Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

Source: Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

“However much you have been wanting and hoping and dreaming of meeting the person of your dreams, it is only when you meet them that you will start missing them. It seems that the presence of an object is required to make its absence felt (or to make the absence of something felt). A kind of longing may have preceded their arrival, but you have to meet in order to feel the full force of your frustration in their absence.”

Want Love Psychology Longing Absence Frustration Missing Someone

Book:Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

Source: Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

“We never... recover from our first false solution to feeling frustrated – the inventing of an ideal object of desire with whom we will never feel the frustration we fear. The ideal person in our minds becomes a refuge from realer exchanges with realer people.”

Frustration Idealism Freud Object Of Desire

Book:Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

Source: Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

“We are tempted, initially, to be self-satisfying creatures, to live in a fantasy world, to live in our minds, but the only satisfactions available are the satisfactions of reality, which are themselves frustrating; but only in the sense that they are disparate from, not in accord with our wished-for satisfactions”

Reality Fantasy Satisfaction Frustration

Book:Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

Source: Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

About the Author

Adam PhillipsBrowse author quotes

Books by Same Author

Darwin's Worms: On Life Stories and Dea...Browse source quotes

In WritingBrowse source quotes

MonogamyBrowse source quotes

Going saneBrowse source quotes

Darwin's WormsBrowse source quotes

On BalanceBrowse source quotes

On FlirtationBrowse source quotes

The Beast in the Nursery: On Curiosity...Browse source quotes

Related Topics

Frustration Desire Love Transference Want Absence Bicycle Dream Familiar Fantasy

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Similar Authors

No similar authors found.