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Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You: A Novel

Book by Peter Cameron · 11 quotes · Thinking, People, Feels

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Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You: A Novel Quotes

“It made me very sad, that question. Sad and defeated. Because I knew she knew why I was thinking about that woman-I was thinking about my own tendencies toward aloneness and I thought I could end up like that woman, with a bird perhaps, or a dog-probably a dog, I know birds are supposed to make good pets but I think there's something creepy about them-but alone with a life that didn't touch or overlap with anyone else's, a sort of hermetically sealed life.”

ThinkingKnowsMadeEndsMy OwnDogBirdTendenciesPetDefeatedCreepyVery Sad
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“Dr. Adler had instructed me to always say whatever I was thinking, but this was difficult for me, for the act of thinking and the act of articulating those thoughts were not synchronous to me, or even necessarily consecutive. I knew that I thought and spoke in the same language and that theoretically there should be no reason why I could not express my thoughts as they occurred or soon thereafter, but the language in which I thought and the language in which I spoke, though both English, often seemed divided by a gap that could not be simultaneously, or even retrospectively, bridged.”

ThinkingShouldReasonLanguageDifficultReason WhyNo ReasonSpokesGapsDividedDrsMy ThoughtsConsecutiveArticulatingAdler
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“Most people think things are not real unless they are spoken, that it's the uttering of something, not the thinking of it, that legitimizes it. I suppose this is why people always want other people to say "I love you." I think just the opposite—that thoughts are realest when thought, that expressing them distorts or dilutes them.”

PeopleThinkingWantRealLove YouOppositesSay I Love You
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“I actually grew fond of her in a nastily superior kind of way. For she was so completely artless and optimistic and clueless, she didn't care that she smelled bad or was fat or wore clothes unlike everyone else's, she had some weird disconnect with life that kept her constantly bubbling, and you knew she would go blithely through her long horribly boring life thinking every thing was just swell (the opposite of me).”

ThinkingWayKindLongCareGrewClothesOppositesBoringSuperiorsFatsOptimisticCluelessBoring Life
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“I’m not a sociopath or a freak (although I don’t suppose people who are sociopaths or freaks self-identify as such); I just don’t enjoy being with people. People, at least in my experience, rarely say anything interesting to each other. They always talk about their lives and they don’t have very interesting lives. So I get impatient. For some reason I think you should only say something if it’s interesting or absolutely has to be said.”

PeopleIfsThinkingShouldSaidSelfReasonEnjoyInterestingFreakSay AnythingVery InterestingImpatientSociopathInteresting Life
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