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Quote by Ottessa Moshfegh

“She suggested I keep a log of my dreams as a way of tracking the 'waning intensity of suffering.' 'I don't like the term "dream journal,"' she told me at our in-person appointment in June. 'I prefer "night vision log.”

Quote by Ottessa Moshfegh

Book:My Year of Rest and Relaxation
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My Year of Rest and Relaxation

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Ottessa Moshfegh
Ottessa Moshfegh

Ottessa Moshfegh is a contemporary American author known for her unique narrative style and profound psychological insights. Her works often explore themes of loneliness, alienation, and moral dilemmas in modern society. more

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“Morality doesn’t mean ‘following divine commands’. It means ‘reducing suffering’. Hence in order to act morally, you don’t need to believe in any myth or story. You just need to develop a deep appreciation of suffering. If you really understand how an action causes unnecessary suffering to yourself or to others, you will naturally abstain from it. People nevertheless murder, rape and steal because they have only a superficial appreciation of the misery this causes. They are fixated on satisfying their immediate lust or greed, without concern for the impact on others – or even for the long-term impact on themselves. Even inquisitors who deliberately inflict as much pain as possible on their victim, usually use various desensitising and dehumanising techniques in order to distance themselves from what they are doing.”

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Book:21 Lessons for the 21st Century
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“The Buddha taught that the three basic realities of the universe are that everything is constantly changing, nothing has any enduring essence, and nothing is completely satisfying. You can explore the furthest reaches of the galaxy, of your body, or of your mind – but you will never encounter something that does not change, that has an eternal essence, and that completely satisfies you.”

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Book:21 Lessons for the 21st Century
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“But I live here, in this place. And I don’t know how to tell you that. I don’t want you to squirm, or take my hand and say it’s tragic. I don’t want you to roll your eyes as though I’m playing a macho game of one-upmanship: My pain can beat up everyone else’s adolescent pain, so I’ll just be over here in the corner, savoring the depths of my stoic suffering and shedding no more than a single tear when I listen to every single cover of “Hurt” and “Hallelujah” on repeat. No, you can’t help me. Don’t try to help me. Please try to help me.”

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“The ultimate cause of human suffering is based on the internal structure of the mind. All causes of the discomfort and distress mainly come from the inner world. Given that the human brain is a necessary and sufficient cause of the human mind, in general, a person should begin with a reconfiguration of the brain if he or she wants to avoid all the sufferings in life. Remember that the brain is the ultimate cure for all suffering.”

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“What are you burning?" On a glance, just some papers. "I write in a journal." He spoke below his breath, so that his words weren't quite for me. "Because I like to see everything written down. So that I know it really happened. That I wasn't just making it up. Then I read it and memorize it. And then I have to destroy the hard evidence." I thought of my own journal, the muddle of every page. All those unfiltered, lunatic letters to Sean Ryan. "What is it, exactly, that you need to destroy?" "Everything that I don't want to be true.”

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“It seems to me that the whole effort is not to avoid suffering, or the inevitable deformation which one encounters in a life, but to use them--to use one's suffering to understand the suffering of other people. And to understand that though you have lost some things because you were born when you were born, where you were born--because of who you became: you've gained some other things. It's adolescent--I think--to look back and wish it had been different. You've got to make the most, precisely, of what it [life] is.”

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Author:James Baldwin
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