184 Quotes by Maggie Nelson

I stopped smugly repeating ‘Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly’ and wondered anew, can everything be thought.

Exasperated, you finally said, ‘You think I’m not worried too? Of course I’m worried. What I don’t need is your worry on top of mine. I need your support.

Loneliness is solitude with a problem.

As it turned out, my fears were unwarranted. Which isn’t to say you haven’t changed. But the biggest change of all has been a measure of peace. The peace is not total, but in the face of a suffocating anxiety, a measure of peace is no small thing.

I suppose it is possible that one day we will meet again and it will feel as if nothing ever happened between us.

As her time grew near, your brother took her in. His family situation was under strain, but at least she had a bed there, her own room. It was almost good enough. But really none of it was good enough, even though it was better than many get. When she began to lose consciousness, your brother had her moved to a local hospice; you flew there in the dead of night, desperate to get there in time, so that she wouldn’t die alone.

I feel I can give you everything without giving myself away, I whispered in your basement bed. If one does one’s solitude right, this is the prize.

Barthes found the exit to this merry-go-round by reminding himself that “it is language which is assertive, not he.

The mother of an adult child sees her work completed and undone at the same time.′ If this holds true, I may have to withstand not only rage, but also my undoing. Can one prepare for one’s undoing? How has my mother withstood mine? Why do I continue to undo her, when what I want to express above all else is that I lover her very much?