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T Quotes

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All T Quotes

“There's a biblical saying that translates roughly as 'First you will do, then you will understand.' Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and experience something before its meaning becomes apparent. It's one thing to talk about leaving behind a restrictive mindset. It's another to stop being so restrictive. The transfer of words into action, the freedom of it, made me want to carry the action outside the therapy room and into my life.”

“There's a big difference between an intervention that's introduced or suggested due to a true medical need - or even by your request - and one that's due to impatience; a difference between someone saying "We're noticing this, let's discuss your options as well as our recommendations and reasons" and "We're noticing this, and you have to do this." In the first case, a care provider gives information and wants to talk options; in the second, the care provider uses fear and shaming to coerce the decision they want. Having a working, respectful, and good relationship with your care provider can make all the difference here, but so can your clarity about this one thing: you deserve respect, options, and support. If you are feeling pressured into an intervention, if you are feeling guilted into an intervention, if you are feeling ignored, disrespected, or embarrassed in any way, as if you need to make a certain choice to please other people in the room, this is not good care and you need a second opinion - or a new care provider.”

“There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you. there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I pur whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he's in there. there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay down, do you want to mess me up? you want to screw up the works? you want to blow my book sales in Europe? there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody's asleep. I say, I know that you're there, so don't be sad. then I put him back, but he's singing a little in there, I haven't quite let him die and we sleep together like that with our secret pact and it's nice enough to make a man weep, but I don't weep, do you?”

“There’s a bobby pin, two receipts, and my mother’s voice trapped in a voicemail I haven’t had the courage to delete. my lipstick sits there too the one I wore the day I didn’t cry. No one asks why I keep a drawer full of matchboxes and apology notes. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I trace the ring mark left by an old mug and imagine it’s a constellation. I tell myself the bedside table is not clutter it’s just the only place I keep remembering to live. Some days, I organize it. Most days, it organizes me.”

“There's a bump in your nose now." He glared at me. "There is not." "Your mouth is lopsided." He opened his mouth to argue, but then he just let out a weary groan. "What is the point? I am hideous. I can't wait to change myself back again." "Don't. I prefer you like this." He looked surprised, then he began to smile. "Do you?" "Yes," I said. "You blend into the background. I could almost forget about you entirely. It's refreshing." Naturally, he found a way to twist this into a compliment. "And am I ordinarily a distraction to you, Em?”

“There's a catch phrase that you all must have heard at one time or another. You walk into a room or go over toward a group. Someone turns and says with huge emphasis: 'There he is.' As though you were the most important one of all. (And you're not.) As though you were the one they were just talking about. (And they weren't.) As though you were the only one that mattered. (And you're not.) It's a nice little tribute, and it don't cost anyone a cent. ("New York Blues")”

“There's a certain amount of ambiguity in my background, what with intermarriages and conversions, but under various readings of three codes which I don’t much respect (Mosaic Law, the Nuremberg Laws, and the Israeli Law of Return) I do qualify as a member of the tribe, and any denial of that in my family has ceased with me. But I would not remove myself to Israel if it meant the continuing expropriation of another people, and if anti-Jewish fascism comes again to the Christian world—or more probably comes at us via the Muslim world—I already consider it an obligation to resist it wherever I live. I would detest myself if I fled from it in any direction. Leo Strauss was right. The Jews will not be 'saved' or 'redeemed.' (Cheer up: neither will anyone else.) They/we will always be in exile whether they are in the greater Jerusalem area or not, and this in some ways is as it should be. They are, or we are, as a friend of Victor Klemperer's once put it to him in a very dark time, condemned and privileged to be 'a seismic people.' A critical register of the general health of civilization is the status of 'the Jewish question.' No insurance policy has ever been devised that can or will cover this risk.”

“There's a certain freshness and innocence in people who have always lived in one place and can count on witnesses to their passage through the world. In contrast, those of us who have moved on many times develop tough skin out of necessity. Since we lack roots or corroboration of who we are, we must put our trust in memory to give continuity to our lives...but memory is always cloudy, we can't trust it.”

“There’s a certain mystique about a priest’s uniform; black slacks, black shirt, and Roman collar that evokes different responses from different people—sometimes reverence, other times disdain. Being perceived as a pillar of the community can be a heady experience for a new priest, and one’s ego needs to be checked continually. The collar can also be an aphrodisiac for certain women, single or married, who are attracted to and flirt with the “unattainable” priest.”

“There's a certain point in life at which you realise it's no longer interesting that time goes forward -- or rather, that its forward-going-ness has been the central plank of life's illusion, and that while you were waiting to see what was going to happen next, you were steadily being robbed of all you had. Language is the only thing capable of stopping the flow of time, because it exist in time, is made of time, yet it is eternal -- or can be.”

“There's a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes – Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – We can find no scar, But internal difference – Where the Meanings, are – None may teach it – Any – 'Tis the seal Despair – An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air – When it comes, the Landscape listens – Shadows – hold their breath – When it goes, 'tis like the Distance On the look of Death –”