“Trauma destroys the fabric of time. In normal time you move from one moment to the next, sunrise to sunset, birth to death. After trauma, you may move in circles, find yourself being sucked backwards into an eddy or bouncing like a rubber ball from now to then to back again. ... In the traumatic universe the basic laws of matter are suspended: ceiling fans can be helicopters, car exhaust can be mustard gas.””
“I could probably write a book on the complexities of our relationship, on my constantly shifting emotions, my ever-changing mind, but let's just say that nothing is ever as black and white as it seems, that love is not only blind but pathetic too. It can make us into victims and fools, reduce us to the kind of people who infuriate us on soap operas, the kind you want to scream at for allowing the creep or bitch to walk all over them.””
“The less that women are visible as a research subject, the less we are likely to learn about lesbians.””
“We are born in debt, owing the world a death. This is the shadow that darkens every cradle. Trauma is what happens when you catch a surprise glimpse of that darkness, the coming annihilation not only of the body and the mind but also, seemingly, of the world.””
“The lesson taught by the war was clear: to be human is to be small, powerless, and subject to the forces of randomness.””
“Later, I interviewed a prominent psychoanalyst, who told me that trauma destroys the fabric of time. In normal time, you move from one moment to the next, sunrise to sunset, birth to death. After trauma, you may move in circles, find yourself being sucked backwards into an eddy, or bouncing about like a rubber ball from now to then and back again. August is June, June is December. What time is it? Guess again. In the traumatic universe, the basic laws of matter are suspended: ceiling fans can be helicopters, car exhaust can be mustard gas. Another odd feature of traumatic time is that it doesn’t just destroy the flow of the present into the future, it corrodes everything that came before, eating at moments and people from your previous life, until you can’t remember why any of them mattered. What I previously found inconceivable is now inescapable: I have been blown up so many times in my mind that it is impossible to imagine a version of myself that has not been blown up. The man on the other side of the soldier’s question is not me. In fact, he never existed. The war is gone now, but the event remains, the happening that nearly erased the life to come and thus erased the life that came before. The soldier’s question hangs in the air the way it always has. The way it always will. Have you ever been blown up before, sir?””
J. Morris was a notable figure in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, recognized for his contributions to the understanding of Japanese culture and the intersection of science and theology. His wo...
“There comes a point in every man’s life when he sees that the magician’s hat is empty, that the government and the church are run by fools, and that virtue is far rarer than he’d been led to believe.””
“The thing you have to understand,” Hel said quietly, as if the shadows might overhear, “is that someone like my father doesn’t have ‘men.’ He’s a whisper of information, a nudge on someone’s baser instincts, a finger on a domino whose effects spiral out in unseen designs.””
“Men like him are entirely too quick to call a woman mad or monstrous just because she can do something they can't.””
“Because,” Sam said fiercely, “as a wise woman once told me, men are entirely too quick to call a woman mad or monstrous just because she can do something they can’t. Don’t do it for them.””
“Dwelling in the web of regret doesn't change the past. However, any amount of gratitude can change the present of how you view the circumstances that you are in.””
“Sam chose her next words carefully”
“Her biceps were entirely theoretical, her greatest adversary the occasional papercut.””