184 Quotes by Maggie Nelson

We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate on them well,” wrote Emerson. Is it true? If so, who can bear to believe it?

Like many self-help books, The Deepest Blue is full of horrifyingly simplistic language and some admittedly good advice. Somehow the women in the book learn to say: That’s my depression talking. It’s not “me.” As if we could scrape the color off the iris and still see.

This is generous, for to be close to her pain has always felt like a privilege to me, even though pain could be defined as that which we typically aim to avoid.

You’re the only one who knows when you’re using things to protect yourself and keep your ego together and when you’re opening and letting things fall apart, letting the world come as it is – working with it rather than struggling against it. You’re the only one who knows. And the thing is, even you don’t always know.