Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Miriam Toews

Quote by Miriam Toews

“I googled 'suicide gene' but cancelled the search at the last second. I didn't want to know. Plus, I already knew. People ask: but how does this happen? To think that even with all the security measures we employ these days to keep things out - fences and motion detectors and cameras and sunscreen and vitamins and deadbolts and chains and bike helmets and spinning classes and guards and gates - we can have secret killers lurking inside us? That we can turn on our happy selves the way tumours invade healthy, wholesome organs, the way 'normal' moms suddenly throw their infants off the balcony is...who wants to think about that shit?”

Quote by Miriam Toews

Book:All My Puny Sorrows
Create image

Work

All My Puny Sorrows

The story follows two sisters, both with complex relationships and personal struggles. It delves into the complexities of their mental health and the intricate dynamics within their family unit. more

Author

Miriam Toews
Miriam Toews

Miriam Toews is a Canadian writer known for her unique narrative style and profound insights into social issues. Her works often focus on religion, family, and social change, and have won her a wide readership. more

You May Also Like

“i am only beginning to realize how fragmented and uncoordinated I am. My left hand does not know what my right hand is doing. My heart tells me to go in one direction, and my mind another, and I do not know which to obey. I am furious with Mother for not being my mother, and I am filled with an aching tenderness I have never known before. There are rough waters below the surface of my consciousness, and strange, submarine winds. The submerged me is more aware of wild tides and undertows than the surface. One deep calls another, because of the noise of the water floods; all the waves and storms are gone over me. And above the surface the brazen sun shines, heat shimmers on the hills, and the long fronds of the golden willow Mother planted ten or more years ago droop in the stillness.”

DeathLossGriefConsciousnessDyingAngerUnconsciousTenderness
Book:The Summer of the Great-Grandmother
Create image

“inevitably I think sometimes about my death, but those thoughts go away as quickly as they come. I tend not to dwell on them. Somebody asked me if I wanted to join a suicide society. It’s some organisation in Edinburgh that helps people to commit suicide and I believe that a lot of Parkinson’s sufferers choose that course of action. But I don’t want to. I’m too interested in what is going on around me. In any case, the fuckers didn’t even offer me a lifetime membership. I think life and death is a very simple question that is made far too complex by people who have an axe to grind. I think that when you die, you go to where you were before you were born: nowhere.”

DeathDyingDeath And Dying
Book:Coming Home: My Grand Adventures in a Wee Country
Create image

“When she was dying, it was impossible to see forward to the next minute. What was happening — for whole weeks — was all that was happening and happening and happening. Months before that, I got the dumb soup wrong. How awful. It was all she wanted and I had gotten it wrong. Then, in the airless days when it was really happening, we started to power panic that we didn’t know enough. What should we do with your ashes? Water or dirt. Water or dirt. Once, she asked to just be thrown into the river where we used to go, still alive, but not living anymore. After it was done, I couldn’t go back to my life. You understand, right? It wasn’t the same. I couldn’t tell if I loved myself more or less. It wasn’t until later, when I moved in with him and stood outside on our patchy imperfect lawn, that I remembered what had been circling in me: I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying.”

LoveDeathPoetryLossGriefDyingPoemMourning
Author:Ada Limon
Create image