It was the first time that I came face to face with madness and feared it and was fascinated by it.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the complex relationship between fear and intrigue, particularly regarding madness.
In this quote, Edna O'Brien describes a powerful encounter with madness, suggesting that it can evoke both fear and fascination. This duality indicates how humans often react to concepts that challenge their understanding of sanity, showing that fear can coexist with a deep curiosity that compels us to explore the unknown aspects of the human psyche.
In practice
During a speech on mental health, I referenced Edna O'Brien's reflection on madness to highlight both the fear and fascination that many have with mental illness.
Love . . . is like nature, but in reverse; first it fruits, then it flowers, then it seems to wither, then it goes deep, deep down into its burrow, where no one sees it, where it is lost from sight, and ultimately people die with that secret buried inside their souls.
That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open.
Cities, in many ways, are the best repositories for a love affair. You are in a forest or a cornfield, you are walking by the seashore, footprint after footprint of trodden sand, and somehow the kiss or the spoken covenant gets lost in the vastness and indifference of nature. In a city there are places to remind us of what has been.
Darkness is drawn to light, but light does not know it; light must absorb the darkness and therefore meet its own extinguishment.
Oh, love, what an unreasoning creature it grew to be.
Recollection is not something that I can summon up, it simply comes and I am the servant of it.
If the land mechanism as a whole is good then every part is good, whether we understand it or not.
To be ourselves we must have ourselves β possess, if need be re-possess, our life-stories. We must βrecollectβ ourselves, recollect the inner drama, the narrative, of ourselves. A man needs such a narrative, a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his identity, his self.
I am compelled to fear that science will be used to promote the power of dominant groups rather than to make men happy.
The American experience influenced my understanding of individuality, basic human rights, freedom of expression and the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
When you're 20 or 30, looking ahead, you see these benchmarks for relationships, career, ambition, sexuality, and they went off into infinity. When you get to 50, you look at what's ahead of you, and there's an end. It goes into a nothingness, a void.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. By the time the mind is able to comprehend what has happened, the wounds of the heart are already too deep.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.