It's not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between.
Interpretation
The struggle between extremes can drive a person to madness, and it is often the uncertainty or ambiguity in between that causes the greatest turmoil.
Jeanette Winterson's quote highlights the human experience of grappling with the extremes of life. While one might think that a particular event or situation might lead to madness, it is often the ambiguity and uncertainty—the 'space in between'—that creates the most profound emotional and psychological challenges. This quote encourages us to recognize and reflect on the complexities of our thoughts and experiences rather than seeking simple answers or definitive outcomes.
In practice
In a discussion about mental health, this quote can emphasize how ambiguity affects our mental state.
What is remembered is not a deed in stone but a metaphor. Meta = above. Pheren = to carry. That which is carried above the literalness of life. A way of thinking that avoids the problems of gravity. The word won't let me down. The single word that can release me from all that unuttered weight.
Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become.
I have a list of titles that I leave at the [library] desk, because they are bound to be written some day, and it's best to be ahead of the queue.
Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.
In that house, you will find my heart. You must break in, Henri, and get it back for me.' Was she mad? We had been talking figuratively. Her heart was in her body like mine. I tried to explain this to her, but she took my hand and put it against her chest. Feel for yourself.
History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.
The golden rule of conduct is mutual toleration, seeing that we will never all think alike and we shall see Truth in fragment and from different angles of vision.
Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world, than I when I was a child.
The cooperative, loving side of existence goes hand in hand with coping and power, but neither the one nor the other can be neglected if life is to be gratifying.
However passionate, sinning, and rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep serenely at us with their innocent eyes; they tell us not of eternal peace alone, of that great peace of "indifferent" nature: they tell us, too, of eternal reconciliation and of life without end.
Oh, how one wishes sometimes to escape from the meaningless dullness of human eloquence, from all those sublime phrases, to take refuge in nature, apparently so inarticulate, or in the wordlessness of long, grinding labor, of sound sleep, of true music, or of a human understanding rendered speechless by emotion!
Fear is proof of a degenerate mind.
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