self-possession is the ability to face without fear life in all its contradictions. Vivian Gornick More Quotes by Vivian Gornick More Quotes From Vivian Gornick 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. Vivian Gornick husbandcouplemen Scientists do what writers do. They also live with an active interiority, only the ongoing speculation in their heads is about relations in the physical world rather than the psychological one. Vivian Gornick ongoingpsychologicalworld ... 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. Vivian Gornick fightingrealessence How dominating is appetite, how enveloping immediate experience! Even the philosophically minded among us capitulate, ultimately, to the narrowest sense of personal need. Political time moves at a snail's pace because it is only with nearly insurmountable difficulty that moral discomfort takes root in the best of people, forcing an imperative out of a complaint; so viscerally repugnant is it for a critical mass to find the prevailing system unbearable, much less prepare to take up arms against it. Vivian Gornick rootspeoplemoving Just as once upon a time you could make the experience of religion or nature a great metaphor, so now it is with love. It's just not the kind of thing you can put at the center of a work of literature and have it really reveal us to ourselves. Vivian Gornick kindliteratureonce-upon-a-time 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. Vivian Gornick dry-upmysteriousemotional 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. Vivian Gornick produceorderfirsts Everyone longs for expressiveness. That's why love carries so much weight. Because so many lives are without other means of expressiveness. Vivian Gornick carrieweightmean The difference between me in my work and the me who is here in front of you is that on the page I create a consistency, a voice that must sound really reliable; whereas in person I am free - obviously! - to sound every which way. Vivian Gornick consistencydifferencesvoice Of course love is a force in life. People will go on falling in love forever. And more important, sexual infatuation will enrapture everyone. Otherwise, no babies! Vivian Gornick falling-in-lovelove-isbaby 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. Vivian Gornick painhurtmay They say writers sell everybody out. What can you do? You know only the people you know. Vivian Gornick do-you-knowknowspeople It seems that fiction no longer produces work that makes one feel the human condition deeply. Vivian Gornick human-conditionproducefiction Feminism gave me a way to see myself in culture, in society, in history, and that was very important. Vivian Gornick feminismimportantculture They may recognize themselves in what you're writing, and then they have to say, "Well, she doesn't see me as I see myself." All a writer has is her own experience, and that experience comes out of human relationships. Vivian Gornick wellswritingmay What you feel when you're writing is the relief of thinking: if you write the sentence correctly, you're clarifying. If you write the right sentence, nothing feels as good. Vivian Gornick reliefwritingthinking What feminism did was make clear for me how much I longed for clarity. I got married twice, each time in a fog. I had so many complicated feelings I couldn't understand. Vivian Gornick feminismfogfeelings Sex is the killer. Sexual love makes you feel more vulnerable than any other kind of love. That's one reason that people are so thorny and so vulnerable and so easily wounded when in love. Vivian Gornick killerssexpeople I was never an activist, in the sense that I didn't really join a lot of organizations. I wasn't out in the streets. But what I did become was a writer. My activism was in writing. Vivian Gornick activismorganizationwriting You can't reduce an actual human being; you're just writing! You're not doing anything to another person. Vivian Gornick humanspersonswriting
