Acts of Desperation
Megan Nolan
Top 10 Best Quotes
“You always think your pain is the most painful. You always think it's uniquely awful.”
“I made mistakes like this all the time, seeking affirmation from the very worst people, so that what I must have been after deep down was confirmation of the fears instead of their dismissals”
“Do you think it would be possible for anyone to love you if they could see every single thing you do?’ And I watch them cringe as though I’ve reached out and struck them. ‘I’m serious,’ I say. ‘Imagine that everyone could see everything. Every secret, every base physical ejection, every category of porn you’ve ever looked at in a kind of coma when you’re numb to the normal stuff. Think about it all. Every moment of shame, of desperation – do you really think anyone could love you still? Anyone at all?’ 3 I remember what it was like when I first loved Ciaran, before he left me that first time at Christmas, when I’d miss him so much when he went anywhere.”
“It’s a peculiar anger, resenting doing something that nobody asked you to do.”
“Being with other people was, to me, the feeling of being realised. This was why I wanted to be in love. In love, you don't need the minute-to-minute physical presence of the beloved to realise you. Love itself sustains and validates the rotten moments you would otherwise be wasting while you practise being a person, pacing back and forth in your shitty apartment, holding off till seven to open the wine.”
“How impoverished my internal life had become, the scrabbling for a token of love from somebody who didn’t want to offer it.”
“The pleasure wasn't often pleasure; it was release from pain. It was binding yourself and feeling good when the bandages came off, it was cutting a hole in your leg so it could feel it heal. I had suffered, and I had made the suffering into something I could consider good. I made it so that suffering was a kind of work.”
“I could not be alone happily, and because I knew this was a sign of weakness, I forced myself to endure it for as long as I could before breaking, although I sometimes thought I would go mad.”
“And that's something to recommend love: that is has clear rules like a game, and it has speeches and sayings you'll have heard in films and in songs. There are patterns and there are steps to be taken. If you lose the game that's one thing, and that has to be dealt with, but at least there is a game to be played at all.”
“In these moments I knew that if I could be smaller, smaller, less and less, if I could be tided, then he would love me fully and properly; and that anybody - oh everybody - would.”
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Book Keywords:
self-destructive, low-self-esteem, love, pain, self-awareness, seeking-validation, self-worth, seeking-reassurance, self-doubt
