Know what we did, Lucy? You and me? We spent our whole lives yearning. Isn't that the God damndest thing?
Richard YatesRead
He knew it was possible for shame to be nursed and doctored like an illness, if you wanted to keep it separate from the rest of your life, but that didn't mean there'd be any way to keep from knowing it was there.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Shame can be treated as an illness, but it cannot be completely ignored or separated from one's life.
In this quote, Richard Yates explores the concept of shame as a pervasive emotion that individuals often try to manage or isolate from their overall existence. He suggests that while it is possible to compartmentalize shame and treat it as something separate, the reality is that acknowledgment of its presence is unavoidable, hinting at the complexities of human emotional experiences and the deep impact they have on life.
Themes
ShameEmotionAcknowledgmentLifePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
During a therapy session, one might reference this quote to discuss the complexities of dealing with shame.
More from Richard Yates
All quotes →She was calm and quiet now with knowing what she had always known, what neither her parents nor Aunt Claire nor Frank nor anyone else had ever had to teach her: that if you wanted something to do something absolutely honest, something true, it always turned out to be a thing that had to be done alone.
Richard YatesRead
He found it so easy and so pleasant to cry that he didn’t try to stop for a while, until he realized he was forcing his sobs a little, exaggerating their depth with unnecessary shudders. … The whole point of crying is to quit before you coined it up. The whole point of grief itself was to cut it out while it was still honest, while it still meant something. Because the thing was so easily corrupted
Richard YatesRead
Do you know what the definition of insane is? Yes. It’s the inability to relate to another human being. It’s the inability to love.
Richard YatesRead
It's a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity.
Richard YatesRead
She just happened to feel like it. Wasn’t that after all, the only reason there was? Had she ever had a less selfish, more complicated reason for doing anything in her life?
Richard YatesRead
Similar quotes
Praised be the fathomless universe, for life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious.
Walt WhitmanRead
Shape clay into a vessel; _x000D_ _x000D_ It is the space within that makes it useful. _x000D_ _x000D_ Cut doors and windows for a room; _x000D_ _x000D_ It is the holes which make it useful. _x000D_ _x000D_ Therefore benefit comes from what is there; _x000D_ _x000D_ Usefulness from what is not there.
LaoziRead
It was for one minute that I saw him, but the hair stood upon my head like quills. Sir, if that was my master, why had he a mask upon his face?
Robert Louis StevensonRead
These most crafty enemies [the devils] have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered.
Pope Leo XiiiRead
What must strike any intelligent witch or wizard on studying the so-called history of the Elder Wand is that every man who claims to have owned it has insisted that it is "unbeatable," when the known facts of its passage through many owners' hands demonstrate that has it not only been beaten hundreds of times, but that it also attracts trouble as Grumble the Grubby Goat attracted flies.
J. K. RowlingRead
We judge others by their actions but we judge ourselves by our intensions.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead