Leslie Jamison Professions : Novelist Born : 1983 Browse All Authors Top 50 quotes by Leslie Jamison Empathy is cloaked in our actions - as in, we might be experiencing empathy but not realize it's empathy. Leslie Jamison our-actions empathy might Learning the edges or limits or sources of friction in empathy was one of the big issues for me. Leslie Jamison empathy issues limits In my own life as a reader I experience real moments of alienation when a writer feels too perfect, or like even the flaws they are admitting are somehow noble, or dysfunctional in an overly edgy, aesthetically pleasing way. Leslie Jamison admitting real perfect When people ask what kind of nonfiction I write, I say 'all kinds,' but really I mean I don’t write any kind at all: I’m trying to dissolve the borders between memoir and journalism and criticism by weaving them together. Leslie Jamison writing mean people Perhaps if we say it straight, we suspect, if we express our sentiments too excessively or too directly, we'll find we're nothing but banal. Leslie Jamison suspects sentiments ifs Whatever we can’t hold, we hang on a hook that will hold it. Leslie Jamison hook We think we should have to work in order to feel. We want to have our cake resist us; and then we want to eat it, too. Leslie Jamison should-have order thinking Post-wounded women know that postures of pain play into limited and outmoded conceptions of womanhood. Their hurt has a new native language spoken in several dialects: sarcastic, jaded, opaque; cool and clever. They guard against those moments when melodrama or self-pity might split their careful seams of intellect, expose the shame of self-absorption without self-awareness. Leslie Jamison sarcastic hurt clever I needed people to deliver my feelings back to me in a form that was legible. Which is a superlative kind of empathy to seek, or to supply: an empathy that rearticulates more clearly what it's shown. Leslie Jamison empathy feelings people You pass the old L.A. County jail, which is surprisingly beautiful. It's got a handsome stone facade and stately columns. The new L.A. County jail - called The Twin Towers - isn't beautiful at all; it's a stucco panopticon the color of sick flesh. Leslie Jamison jail color beautiful After finishing a draft, no matter how rough, I almost always put it aside for a while. It doesn't matter if it's a story or a novel, I find that when it's still fresh in my mind I'm either thoroughly sick of its flaws or completely blind to them. Either way, I'm unable to make substantive edits of any value. Leslie Jamison finishing sick mind Armchair poverty tourism has been around as long as authors have written about class. As an author, I have struggled myself with the nuances of writing about poverty without reducing any community to a catalog of its difficulties. Leslie Jamison writing class long Sometimes I do feel exposed. I have this kind of theory about different channels or levels of relaying experience - when I tell someone, one on one, in a personal context, about something that's happened to me - that has a very different valence, a different charge, than when/if I've said it in a public forum. Leslie Jamison levels different kind There's something about that puritanical narrative of progress and upward mobility and work ethic that the glorification of abstinence fits pretty neatly into. That pairs with the fact that 12-step recovery has had too large a monopoly on how treatment is understood in America. Leslie Jamison progress work-ethic work america One of the big ways in which I felt my own writing life shaped by recovery had to do with my relationship to other people's stories. And one of the things I loved most about recovery was the way in which, in meetings and through fellowship, you are constantly kind of paying attention to lives outside of your own. Leslie Jamison you relationship life people Somebody once asked me how I define sobriety, and my response was 'liberation from dependence.' Leslie Jamison somebody how me sobriety I can't remember a time when I wasn't trying to figure out what to say at the dinner table. Leslie Jamison dinner time remember trying Whenever we feel shame, it's a mark of some deep investment or deep internal struggle. Leslie Jamison deep feel shame struggle Probably every person is some mixture of wanting to feel a sense of commonality and shared experience with others but also wanting to feel completely singular and unique. Leslie Jamison person feel experience unique The 'here' of Watts is pastel houses with window gratings in curly patterns. 'Here' is yard sales with bins full of stuffed animals and used water guns. Here is Crips turf. Leslie Jamison curly animals water window Similar Authors Adam Johnson novelist Ivan Goncharov novelist Binnie Kirshenbaum novelist Bruce Jay Friedman novelist Buchi Emecheta novelist Bryce Courtenay novelist All Authors