“Keep making noise, I prayed, laughing. Bang drums. Clamor and ring bells for I cannot stand to hear the tired beating of this almost heart.” AnxietyHeartache Book:The Cranes Dance Source: The Cranes Dance
“Everyone is in pain. Most people think pain in massage means something is happening, and if they can endure it, they will be improved, but sometimes the only thing pain means is pain. It a very easy mistake to make, though.. She’d refused for the longest time to get therapy or take any psychoactive drugs because she’d felt that the “darkness” was necessary, not just for her as an actor, but as a human being. You didn’t have to feel slightly terrible all the time, as it turns out. Her only worry now was that slightly terrible was not a flaw in her chemistry, but an appropriate response to being the kind of person that she was. “You’re very hard on yourself,” Luke said. “Can you imagine the kind of person that I’d be if I wasn’t hard on myself?” she said back. Luke should be sympathetic. He was hoping to improve the human race, and it would be hard to get there if the human race thought it was already fantastic, thanks very much. Well, she could still go dark, if she needed to, she could go dark right now. Yesterday she had done Terror. She’d done Fear and Dejection and Remorse. And because she had done Remorse as fully as a person could do it, she knew that she hadn’t ever experienced that kind of pure Remorse before. What she’d felt in the past was polluted Remorse, because half the time she was sorry she was also privately resentful and building a case about why the actions that had led to Remorse could be justified.” PainSufferingHealingExistential Suffering Book:The Wanderers Source: The Wanderers
“But it wasn't Neil or Buzz that had interested her, or even the moon itself. She had been attracted to the missions' most unsung hero: Michael Collins, alone in Columbia, drifting around the moon in exquisite solitary splendor while Buzz and Neil had gone about the terrestrial work of putting down a plaque, erecting a flag, and gathering rocks. Every two hours Michael Collins had gone out of radio contact for forty-eight minutes when the moon stood between himself and Earth, and during those minutes he was the most alone person in the history of people. Helen still liked to think about that. That had always been her dream: space, not a location with it, just space.” SpaceAlone Book:The Wanderers Source: The Wanderers
“I am here. I am in the present tense. I'm not always here, and sometimes here is a very difficult place. Sometimes it is a labyrinth, or a Minotaur, or a rope I can neither let go of nor follow. It's hard to find the right words, but I guess I would say that it's something like feeling the floor. And that it is my privilege to feel it.” AliveAcceptanceGratitudeSelf Acceptance Book:The Cranes Dance Source: The Cranes Dance
“Being depressed is not the worst thing. It depends on how you address the feeling. Perhaps Sergei is luckier than his crewmates. Americans always desire happiness, so they fear sadness, unlike Russians, who can draw strength from mourning. The Japanese too, Sergei understands, have an easier relationship with melancholy. Sergei is very glad that Helen is a woman and not a man. Depressed American men on spaceships are embarrassing.” SpaceDepressionAstronauts Book:The Wanderers Source: The Wanderers
“It's a moment to learn. This was the thing about miscalculations, errors, and mistakes. You admitted them, you used them as teachable moments, and then you moved on. You didn't forget, but you didn't dwell.” Mistakes Book:The Wanderers Source: The Wanderers
“I made the sympathetic face, and the interested face, and even the impressed face. I did not say, 'In the name of all that is holy, cease this incessant drivel, you pretentious ass.” HumorDanceBallet Book:The Cranes Dance Source: The Cranes Dance
“When you step from the wings onto the stage you go from total blackness to a blinding hot glare. After a moment you adjust, but there is that moment. like being inside lightning.” ArtDanceTheatrePerformance Book:The Cranes Dance Source: The Cranes Dance
“If only we could crawl inside our dreams and live there. Why can't I live inside my dream?” Dreams Book:The Cranes Dance Source: The Cranes Dance
“What is the thing that happens in a friendship that isn't an absence of sex? The thing added, that's maybe only between women. Not a matter of our organs or whether we were born with them or what we do with them. It's this: a particular kind of glory that happens when we share our suffering and are seen. There's a rising - a cry, a rush, a beating of wings together. An exaltation. I'm loath to connect womanness with suffering, or suffering with greatness, but there it is.” SufferingWomenFriendshipConnection Book:They're Going to Love You Source: They're Going to Love You
“Marriage is always kind of a net loss, for girls.” Marriage Book:They're Going to Love You Source: They're Going to Love You