Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Ann Patchett

Quote by Ann Patchett

“Lelia gave a dharma talk about letting go of self-definition: I can't do this because of what happened to me in my childhood; I can't do that because I am very shy; I could never go there because I'm afraid of clowns or mushrooms or polar bears. The group gave a gentle, collective laugh of self-recognition. Teresa found the talk helpful, as she had been having an extended interior dialogue during meditation about how septuagenarians from Torrance were fundamentally unsuited for Buddhism.”

Quote by Ann Patchett

Book:Commonwealth
Create image

Work

Commonwealth

Commonwealth is a thought-provoking novel that delves into the complexities of family dynamics and the repercussions of hidden truths. The story unfolds through the lives of interconnected characters, revealing the consequences of their actions and the secrets they have kept. more

Author

Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett, born on December 2, 1963, is a renowned American author. Her works are known for their profound character development and engaging storytelling, earning her numerous literary awards and the admiration of readers worldwide. more

You May Also Like

“We were collectively defining our identities by what we would not do, and such an act of definition can be a strange, subtle sort of self-murder. I understand that such a radical act might be necessary, in the face of an intractable self-destructiveness, to save one's life. But I can't bring myself to embrace it, because in any such act of self definition (I'm Mark and I'm an addict) the other selves, some of whom are not named because they don't belong in this context, and some of whom aren't named because they cannot be, but remain phantoms, potentialities, shadows, little streams into the larger liquidity--well, all those aspects of oneself are more or less banished from the conversation, and they retreat a little farther away, and then a little farther again.”

IdentitySelf Definition
Book:What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life
Create image

“In the last few years we had learnt more of the people round us, and the way they felt. What had seemed, five or six years ago, a kind of rather disquieting game had grown grimmer as we understood more about it. Essentially, it had not changed. Still our whole consideration if we were to survive must be to keep our true selves hidden; to walk, talk, and live indistinguishably from other people. We had a gift, a sense which, Michael complained bitterly, should have been a blessing, but was little better than a curse. The stupidest norm was happier; he could feel that he belonged. We did not, and because we did not, we had no positive — we were condemned to negatives, to not revealing ourselves, to not speaking when we would, to not using what we knew, to not being found out — to a life of perpetual deception, concealment, and lying. The prospect of continued negativeness stretching out ahead chafed him more than it did the rest of us. His imagination took him further, giving him a clearer vision of what such frustrations were going to mean, but it was no better at suggesting an alternative than ours were.”

NormalcyDeviation
Book:The chrysalids
Create image