Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.
Barbara KingsolverRead
Insomnia’s different,” I said. It was hard to explain this to people. “You know the light that comes on when you open the refrigerator door? Just imagine it stays on all the time, even after you close the door. That’s what it’s like in my head. The light stays on.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Insomnia creates a constant state of mental alertness, akin to an unending light inside one's mind.
In this quote, Barbara Kingsolver poignantly describes the unique experience of insomnia, illustrating how it affects the mind by using the metaphor of a refrigerator light that never turns off. This constant illumination symbolizes the relentless stream of thoughts and anxiety that incapacitate restful sleep, allowing readers to empathize with the profound challenge of living with insomnia.
Themes
InsomniaSleepAnxietyMental HealthAlertness
In practice
Example use cases
In a mental health awareness campaign, this quote can be used to highlight the struggles faced by those suffering from insomnia.
More from Barbara Kingsolver
All quotes →Children can be your heartache. But that doesn't matter, you have to go on and have them . . . it works out.
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I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.
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I did it to win love, and to prove myself capable. Not to move mountains. In my opinions, mountains don't move. They only look changed when you look down on them from great height.
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Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.
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Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own.
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