Quote

Ever since Freud, being alone has been considered something of a psychological failure. The point, according to Freudian theory, is to be able to love and connect. But I don't believe that at all. I think that being alone and being coupled and being in a group are all natural states in which people can thrive.

Alix Kates Shulman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alix Kates Shulman
Age: 92
Born: 1932
Born: August 17
Novelist
Writer
Cleveland
Ohio
Ever
Groups
Freud
Something
Theory
Thrive
Believe
Since
Connect
Love
Alone
Psychological
Think
Point
According
Thinking
Natural
Considered
People
States
Group
Freudian
Able
Failure
Coupled

More quotes by Alix Kates Shulman

Image
For many decades my relations with my parents constituted unfinished business. I had dealt with them through sheer avoidance and guilt.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
People often say to me now, Your work changed my life. I'm sure that's an exaggeration, but they say it had a big effect on them and enabled them to change. I'm not sure I believe that a book will cause someone to change.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
Sexism goes so deep that at first it's hard to see you think it's just reality.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
I am not a psychological novelist, and I try very hard not to allow the reader to see the plight or circumstances of the characters as individual psychological plights. That's my preference still, a lot of people do read my novels as psychological studies, and they're right to read them that way too, if that's what they mean to them.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
Being alone for a woman is probably much more scary than for a man. I'm all for getting over our fears by facing them head-on.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
It's always difficult to write honestly of one's deepest feelings, particularly without the protective veil of fiction. But the more difficult, the more rewarding if one succeeds. Rewarding not only to the work but to one's peace of mind.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
Fiction is ideally suited to re-creating the important emotional aspects of history.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
The world is abundant with food for us, and with everything we need, if only we just open our eyes. There's so much food that gets thrown out or never harvested.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
I am a feminist. I'm trying to show the relationships between men and women, always the structural relations, not individual villains. I'd never make a husband a villain. I try very hard in my work not to - because if I made one man a villain, the rest would be off the hook. I'm interested in the system of oppression.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
One important part of historical recording is to get people of another generation to understand the feelings, the passion that went into social transformation. That's why oral history is so valuable.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
When you witness the end of a life up close day by day, you begin to understand time and mortality in profound ways. You see time's relativity, death's necessity.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
Many people spend the ends of their lives alone, and probably a lot of years in the middle of their lives, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to experience the rewards of solitude.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
In my books, my idea is always to explore social context and social forces.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
When I became a feminist, when the movement started in the late sixties, I started writing because I had something urgent to say. My first novel, Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen, is the product of that urgency.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
Within walking distance of any spot on Earth there's probably more than enough mystery to investigate in a lifetime.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
Our society has very much limited our choices, even regarding the food we think acceptable.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
My mirror image always had to be interpreted. And for that I sought my reflection in someone else's eyes.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
Solitude offers a lot that being coupled or being in a group does not. It helps us learn what we are capable of.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
Usually, ordinary histories don't get the emotional feel of a period. That's what a novel can do.
Alix Kates Shulman
Image
There is still nothing like equality for women in jobs, in family. There's just an awareness that inequality is not acceptable.
Alix Kates Shulman