A.S.A. Harrison Quotes

• We live alone in our cluttered psyches, possessed by our entrenched beliefs, our fatuous desires, our endless contradictions - and like it or not we have to put up with this in one another.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Psych, Desire, Belief

  A. S. A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife: A Novel”, p.107, Penguin

  46 Copy quote

• Other people are not here to fulfill our needs or meet our expectations, nor will they always treat us well. Failure to accept this will generate feelings of anger and resentment. Peace of mind comes with taking people as they are and emphasizing the positive.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Expectations, People, Feelings

  A. S. A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife: A Novel”, p.17, Penguin

  8 Copy quote

• There are lots of reasons why a woman stays with a man, even when she's given up on changing him and can predict with certainty the shape that the rest of her life with him is going to take.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Men, Shapes, Reason Why

  A.S.A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife”, p.117, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

• Life has a way of taking its toll on the person you thought you were.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Life, Tolls, Way

  A. S. A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife: A Novel”, p.18, Penguin

  5 Copy quote

• As for herself, every morning on waking she gives thanks to the God she doesn't disbelieve in. Although she can't credit him with saving her, she needs this outlet for her gratitude.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Gratitude, Morning, Giving

  A.S.A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife”, p.242, Hachette UK

  7 Copy quote

• Every shrink knows that it's not the event itself but how you respond to it that tells the story. Take ten assorted individuals, expose them all to the same life trial, and they will each suffuse it with exquisite personal detail and meaning.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Events, Details, Stories

  A.S.A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife”, p.240, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

• It’s a known fact that in certain contexts people’s great strengths become their epic failings.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Epic, People, Facts

  A. S. A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife: A Novel”, p.14, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• The experience you’ve had may be unwanted, may amount to nothing but damage and waste, but experience has substance, is factual, authoritative, lives on in your past and affects your present, whatever you attempt to do about it.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Past, Substance, May

  4 Copy quote

• Even if you forget that´s not the same as if it never happened. The slate is not entirely wiped clean; you can´t reclaim the person you were beforehand; your state of innocence is not there to be retrieved.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Innocence, Forget, Clean

  4 Copy quote

• We are all mediums for our own basic truths. All we really have in life is the primal force that moves us through our days – our unvarnished, untutored, ever-present, inborn agency.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Moving, Agency, Life Is

  "The Silent Wife".

  4 Copy quote

• She didn't know then that life has a way of backing you into a corner. You make your choices when you're far too young to understand their implications, and with each choice you make the field of possibility narrows. You choose a career and other careers are lost to you. You choose a mate and commit to loving no other.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Careers, Choices, Way

  4 Copy quote

• In spite of what anyone says it’s women who make the rules.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Spite

  A.S.A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife”, p.60, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

• Basic personality traits develop early in life and over time become inviolable, hardwired. Most people learn little from experience, rarely thinking of adjusting their behavior, see problems as emanating from those around them, and keep on doing what they do in spite of everything, for better or worse.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Thinking, People, Personality

  A. S. A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife: A Novel”, p.18, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• In asserting that people don't change, what she means is that they don't change for the better. Whereas changing for the worse, that goes without saying.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Mean, People, Change For The Better

  A. S. A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife: A Novel”, p.18, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• You will not be the same person coming out of a relationship as you were going into it.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Coming Out, Persons

  A. S. A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife: A Novel”, p.73, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Autumn can be glorious but menacing too - the long shadows, brisk winds, scurrying leaves, impending frost.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Autumn, Wind, Long

  A. S. A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife: A Novel”, p.96, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Acceptance is supposed to be a good thing - Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Also compromise, as every couples therapist will tell you. But the cost was high - the damping of expectation, the dwindling of spirit, the resignation that comes to replace enthusiasm, the cynicism that supplants hope. The mouldering that goes unnoticed and unchecked.

  A.S.A. Harrison

  Couple, Acceptance, Expectations

  A. S. A. Harrison (2013). “The Silent Wife: A Novel”, p.143, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

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