“...for most people in the [Jewish] Ghetto [of Warsaw] nature lived only in memory -- no parks, birds, or greenery existed in the Ghetto -- and they suffered the loss of nature like a phantom-limb pain, an amputation that scrambled the body's rhythms, starved the senses, and made basic ideas about the world impossible for children to fathom.” PeopleWorldChildrenMadeIdeasBodyPainMemoriesLossImpossibleBirdSensesRhythmParksLimbsGhettoPhantomsFathomAmputationGreeneryWarsawPhantom Limbs Author:Diane Ackerman
“She never got a chance to fall out of love, to do it properly, slowly and thoroughly, and the result was he was like a phantom limb. Gone but still there. And like a true phantom limb, the preponderance of feelings associated with him were painful.” StillsFeelingsFallChanceResultsGoneFalling In LovePainfulLimbsPhantomsPhantom Limbs Author:Sarah Dunn
“But mostly I wondered why the head could move so swiftly while the heart dragged its feet. I still loved him. It felt like anything else permanent that has gone missing; a lost tooth, a severed leg. You might know better, but that doesn’t keep your tongue from poling at the hole in your gum, or your phantom limb from aching.” KnowsHeartStillsMightMovingLostFeltGoneFeetMissingLegsTongueHolesTeethPermanentLimbsPhantomsGumPhantom Limbs Book:Handle with Care: A Novel Source: Handle with Care: A Novel
“Martin said, "It feels as though part of my self has detached and gone to Amsterdam, where it—she—is waiting for me. Do you know about phantom-limb syndrome?" Julia nodded. "There's pain where she ought to be. It's feeding the other pain, the thing that makes me wash and count and all that. So her absence is stopping me from going to find her. Do you see?” KnowsFeelsSaidSelfPainWaitingGoneOughtAbsenceDo You KnowStoppingFeedingLimbsPhantomsDetachedSyndromesJuliaAmsterdamPhantom Limbs Author:Audrey Niffenegger
“Meg was going to have to learn for herself what Laurie had figured out over the summer - that it was better to leave well enough alone, to avoid unnecessary encounters with the people you'd left behind, to not keep poking at that sore tooth with the tip of your tongue. Not because you didn't love them anymore, but because you did, and because that love was useless now, just another dull ache in your phantom limb.” PeopleWellsEnoughLeftBehindsSummerTongueTeethUselessEncountersDullUnnecessaryAcheLimbsLeft BehindPhantomsMegPhantom Limbs Author:Tom Perrotta
“I want to talk to her. I want to have lunch with her. I want her to give me a book she just read and loved. She is my phantom limb, and I just can’t believe I’m here without her.”- on losing her best friend” WantGivingBelieveBookLosingGive MeLunchLimbsPhantomsLosing HerPhantom Limbs Author:Nora Ephron
“It is not simply what one remembers, but why. There are sites of amputation where the past is severed from the body of the present. Remembering only encourages the growth of phantom limbs. And it is not simply what one remembers, or why, but what to do with what one remembers, which of the scattered pieces to carry forward, what to protect and preserve, what to leave behind.” BodyPastRememberGrowthBehindsPiecesProtectPreservesSiteLimbsPhantomsAmputationPhantom Limbs Book:Sweetness in the Belly Source: Sweetness in the Belly