Melissa Febos Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Music isn't seeking to comment on the experience or transmit some finding about it - it is only seeking to express it. The vicarious experience is much more accessible. We all recognize the sound of that howling, because we all have a similar howling inside of us, however we heed it or hold it or muzzle it or repress it or live in bondage to it.

  Melissa Febos

  Muzzle, Sound, Bondage

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Desperation precludes reflection. That is one of the reasons why smart people can get involved in very obviously unworkable relationships. Like addiction, that deep, Imago attachment is more powerful than logic, and in fact disables logic. So, any explanation or analysis or reflection on such a feeling is already many steps removed from the experience.

  Melissa Febos

  Powerful, Smart, Reflection

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I always wished I could go to confession. I was so full of things I couldn't name and had an instinct to hide. I felt burdened by the loneliness of my interior life. I wanted some container that I could empty myself into, some ear that would never be shocked, even if it offered me some kind of penance.

  Melissa Febos

  Loneliness, Names, Ears

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Even though novels were the love of my life, I started off writing poetry. I think because I had a knack for image and lyricism, even though I didn't really have anything to write about, or I didn't know what to write about. I could just couple words together that pleased me and so poetry seemed sort of natural.

  Melissa Febos

  Couple, Writing, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• When you conceal inner reality, this pressure builds. You often don't expose yourself until it reaches extremity, a breaking point, and what emerges is a dramatic shift - at least in the eyes of others, from whom you've hidden the truth. So, dropping out of high school was like that for me. I was fine, I got straight As, I had friends, and then boom, I was like, I'm done.

  Melissa Febos

  School, Eye, Reality

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I have replaced my instinct for secrecy with an instinct for confession.

  Melissa Febos

  Instinct, Confession, Secrecy

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• I made a conscious decision when I was writing that book to depict in real time how I treated it, and how I thought about it, and how I portrayed it to other people, because I wanted the story to be one of change from that to a more honest appraisal, a more accepting appraisal of myself and other people in that world.

  Melissa Febos

  Real, Book, Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Our lives are a long series of acquiring and then sloughing narratives.

  Melissa Febos

  Long, Narrative, Our Lives

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• When I was a kid, I was told that I had a biological father, but that he didn't have much importance. I had an adoptive father who was present, who loved me, who was up to the task. And he was. So, I didn't question that story, until I was thirty-two, and suddenly realized that I was curious, that he did have something to do with me.

  Melissa Febos

  Father, Kids, Two

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• The lovers enter into a story together - "this how we met, this is how we were meant for each other" - and then at some point (in my experience, at least), the story splits, and they no longer share it. Then, you either change the story, or you break up. I've always broken up.

  Melissa Febos

  Broken, Together, Stories

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• A lot of the experiences I write about could be described as grasping for boundaries, trying to find the limits of things.

  Melissa Febos

  Writing, Trying, Limits

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Because of the irresistible nature of our own Imagos, I think the replication of it in music is a siren song - we love those tormented songs, and we listen to them over and over and over the way that we smash ourselves into our lovers, or the same kind of lover, over and over. That drive is tireless, until it is resolved. And we can "enjoy" it safely through music, which is a simulacrum we have power over.

  Melissa Febos

  Song, Thinking, Sirens

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Maybe feeling of presence in my body is why I've always sought out extreme experiences; it forces me to be in a moment, to face the fact of my existing in that particular moment, in my body.

  Melissa Febos

  Feelings, Moments

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

• Children's stories force logic upon the gruesome facts of our lives. They mirror our troubles and submit them to a chain of causality.

  Melissa Febos

  Children, Mirrors, Stories

  Source: therumpus.net

  4 Copy quote

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