Quotes by Vivian Gornick

Vivian Gornick

… the whole sickening trickery in life — the idea that one cannot fight for one’s humanity without, ironically, losing it … that trickery is the real enemy and the very essence of the thing we must continually be on our guard against.

Essence

Fighting

Real

a scientist or a writer is one who ruminates continuously on the nature of physical or imaginative life, experiences repeated relief and excitement when the insight comes, and is endlessly attracted to working out the idea.

Ideas

Science

Work Out

Being a housewife is an illegitimate profession… The choice to serve and be protected and plan towards being a family-maker is a choice that shouldn’t be. The heart of radical feminism is to change that

Choices

Heart

Radical Feminism

Emotional sympathies just dry up and die as we change, and they are as mysterious in friendship as in love. It’s a relationship like any other.

Dry Up

Emotional

Mysterious

Everyone longs for expressiveness. That’s why love carries so much weight. Because so many lives are without other means of expressiveness.

Carrie

Mean

Weight

For the integrated human being there is no past: there is only the continual transformation of original experience.

Being There

Past

Transformation

I don’t know if memoirs can produce literary work of the first order. But I do know that novels are doing it only rarely.

Firsts

Order

Produce

I hated being “Mrs.” from the first second each time. I didn’t know why. All I knew was how uncomfortable it felt. I hated being one half of a couple, without understanding that it wasn’t the husband or the man I hated, it was situation, the identity.

Couple

Husband

Men

I may cause someone to feel badly, not because I’m doing something to them, but because the way in which I see might cause pain. But I am not doing the hurting.

Hurt

May

Pain

in New York there’s such diversity that there’s no one central identity; everyone is marginal.

Diversity

Identity

New York

Follow The Behaviour University in order to get the greatest quotes from the greatest people of all time so that you can tap into your own greatness.

Able

Accomplished

Adequate

Being There

Believe

Cafes

Carrie

Choices

Couple

Desire

Diversity

Do You Know

Dry Up

Emotional

Empty Rooms

Ends

Engagement

Erotic

Essence

Father

Fear

Feelings

Feminism

Fiction

Fighting

Firsts

Fog

Fun

Giving Up

Heart

Human Condition

Hurt

Husband

Ideas

Identity

Illumination

Instruments

Kind

Knows

Literature

Loneliness

Loss

Love You

May

Mean

Men

Metaphor

Mind

Mysterious

New York

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

Tool

The Relationship Therapist

Tool

Quotes by Vivian Gornick

Vivian Gornick

… the whole sickening trickery in life — the idea that one cannot fight for one’s humanity without, ironically, losing it … that trickery is the real enemy and the very essence of the thing we must continually be on our guard against.

a scientist or a writer is one who ruminates continuously on the nature of physical or imaginative life, experiences repeated relief and excitement when the insight comes, and is endlessly attracted to working out the idea.

Being a housewife is an illegitimate profession… The choice to serve and be protected and plan towards being a family-maker is a choice that shouldn’t be. The heart of radical feminism is to change that

Emotional sympathies just dry up and die as we change, and they are as mysterious in friendship as in love. It’s a relationship like any other.

Everyone longs for expressiveness. That’s why love carries so much weight. Because so many lives are without other means of expressiveness.

For the integrated human being there is no past: there is only the continual transformation of original experience.

I don’t know if memoirs can produce literary work of the first order. But I do know that novels are doing it only rarely.

I hated being “Mrs.” from the first second each time. I didn’t know why. All I knew was how uncomfortable it felt. I hated being one half of a couple, without understanding that it wasn’t the husband or the man I hated, it was situation, the identity.

I may cause someone to feel badly, not because I’m doing something to them, but because the way in which I see might cause pain. But I am not doing the hurting.

in New York there’s such diversity that there’s no one central identity; everyone is marginal.

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Topics by Vivian Gornick

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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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