184 Quotes by Maggie Nelson

It’s the binary of normative/transgressive that’s unsustainable, along with the demand that anyone live a life that’s all one thing.

Mostly I have felt myself becoming a servant of sadness. I am still looking for the beauty in that.

100. It often happens that we count our days, as if the act of measurement made us some kind of promise. But really this is like hoisting a harness onto an invisible horse. "There is simply no way that a year from now you're going to feel the way you feel today," a different therapist said to me last year at this time. But though I have learned to act as if I feel differently, the truth is that my feelings haven't really changed.

I don’t even want to talk about “female sexuality” until there is a control group. And there never will be.

Eventually I confess to a friend some details about my weeping—its intensity, its frequency. She says (kindly) that she thinks we sometimes weep in front of a mirror not to inflame self-pity, but because we want to feel witnessed in our despair.

92. Eventually I confess to a friend some details about my weeping—its intensity, its frequency. She says (kindly) that she thinks we sometimes weep in front of a mirror not to inflame self-pity, but because we want to feel witnessed in our despair.

81. What I know: when I met you, a blue rush began. I want you to know, I no longer hold you responsible.

After my friend's accident I take care of her. It is always taking care, but it is difficult, because at times to take care of her is also to cause her pain.

But while the color may sap appetite in the most literal sense, it feeds it in others.