Quotes by Harold Brodkey

Harold Brodkey

Athletes have studied how to leap and how to survive the leap some of the time and return to the ground. They don’t always do it well. But they are our philosophers of actual moments and the body and soul in them, and of our maneuvers in our emergencies and longings.

Athlete

Exercise

Health

Death and I are head to head in a total collision, pure and mutual distaste.

Collision

Mutual

Pure

Death is not soft-mouthed, vague-footed, nearby. It is in the hall.

Halls

Vague

God is an immensity, while this disease, this death, which is in me, this small, tightly defined pedestrian event, is merely and perfectly real, without miracle—or instruction.

Events

Miracle

Real

I am in an adolescence in reverse, as mysterious as the first, except that this time I feel it as a decay of the odds that I might live for a while, that I can sleep it off.

Decay

Odds

Sleep

I am sensible of the velocity of the moments, and entering that part of my head alert to the motion of the world I am aware that life was never perfect, never absolute. This bestows contentment, even a fearlessness.

Contentment

Entering

Perfect

I am startled when people are themselves and are not my thoughts of them.

My Thoughts

People

I can’t change the past, and I don’t think I would. I don’t expect to be understood. I like what I’ve written, the stories and two novels. If I had to give up what I’ve written in order to be clear of this disease, I wouldn’t do it.

Giving Up

Past

Thinking

I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time, any too great a claim that one is in control of what one recounts; I think someone who claims to understand but is obviously calk, someone who claims to write with emotion recollected in tranquility, is a fool and a liar. To understand is to tremble. To recollect is to re-enter and be riven. … I admire the authority of being on one’s knees in front of the event.

Liars

Thinking

Writing

I feel sorry for the man who marries you… because everyone thinks you’re sweet and you’re not.

Home

Sorry

Sweet

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Abstinence

Accomplishment

Anchors

Announcements

Athlete

Church

Collision

Contentment

Darkness

Decay

Degrees

Drunk

Earth

Entering

Events

Exercise

Funeral

Giving Up

Halls

Hard

Has Beens

Health

Home

Homosexual

Homosexuality

Ifs

Illumination

Leaving

Liars

Light

Long Ago

Looks

Loss

Memories

Men

Merit

Mind

Miracle

Mother

Mutual

My Thoughts

New York

Odds

Past

People

Perfect

Prayer

Pure

Rage

Real

The Future Blueprint

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The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

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Quotes by Harold Brodkey

Harold Brodkey

Athletes have studied how to leap and how to survive the leap some of the time and return to the ground. They don’t always do it well. But they are our philosophers of actual moments and the body and soul in them, and of our maneuvers in our emergencies and longings.

Death and I are head to head in a total collision, pure and mutual distaste.

Death is not soft-mouthed, vague-footed, nearby. It is in the hall.

God is an immensity, while this disease, this death, which is in me, this small, tightly defined pedestrian event, is merely and perfectly real, without miracle—or instruction.

I am in an adolescence in reverse, as mysterious as the first, except that this time I feel it as a decay of the odds that I might live for a while, that I can sleep it off.

I am sensible of the velocity of the moments, and entering that part of my head alert to the motion of the world I am aware that life was never perfect, never absolute. This bestows contentment, even a fearlessness.

I am startled when people are themselves and are not my thoughts of them.

I can’t change the past, and I don’t think I would. I don’t expect to be understood. I like what I’ve written, the stories and two novels. If I had to give up what I’ve written in order to be clear of this disease, I wouldn’t do it.

I feel sorry for the man who marries you… because everyone thinks you’re sweet and you’re not.

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Topics by Harold Brodkey

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The Future Blueprint

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

The Autobiography

The Behaviour Diary

The Dating Diary

The Relationship Therapist

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