Alison Bechdel Quotes

"Every one' of the psychoanalytic trainees she [Alice Miller] has supervised has the same history:

An insecure parent who did not appear to be insecure, but who depended on the child behaving in a particular way.

And an 'amazing ability' on the part of the child to perceive this and take on the assigned role.

"This role secured 'love' for the child-that is, his parents' narcissistic cathexis. He could sense he was needed and this, he felt, guaranteed him a measure of existential...[as quoted by Alice Miller]

I am not ultimately interested in writing fiction. I can't make things up. Or rather, I can only make things up about things that have already happened.

Clarice: [getting cold feet] There's still time!
Toni: We can just call everyone and say we're terribly sorry but something came up and we have to leave town!
Clarice: ...But what about the five gallons of baba ganoush, and all those tofu pups?
Toni: Shit. I forgot. Well, I guess we'll just have to go through with it, then.

Cynthia: Of all the times to come out to your family, I had to do it right before the last presidential debate. Damn that John Kerry!
Ginger: Cynthia, I'm sorry your parents are having a meltdown, but it's hardly John Kerry's fault.
Cynthia: When he called Mary Cheney a lesbian, I felt like I had been drop-kicked.
Ginger: Well, Mary Cheney is a lesbian, and you're a political football.

Jezanna: Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chain store jobs!

It was a vicious circle, though. The more gratification we found in our own geniuses, the more isolated we grew. Our home was like an artists' colony. We ate together, but otherwise were absorbed in our separate pursuits. And in this isolation, our creativity took on an aspect of compulsion.

Mo: I... y'know, um... I'm really attracted to you! [thought bubble:] Omigod! Who said that?!
Caption: A horrifying silence ensues. Is it an hour, or merely several seconds?
Harriet: I've had a crush on you for months.
Mo: Thank goddess! I was about to commit hara-kiri with my teaspoon!

Our games of baseball — already lethargic affairs — would grind to a half as soon as the ball rolled near a perennial border.

Sparrow: Listen, Mo. I have been doing crisis intervention with battered, homeless women and kids all week long. Tonight, I am going to vegetate in front of the TV. If you're so worried about Bosnia, go join the Red Cross.

Sydney: Imagine the cinematography if Ennis and Jack had been able to live together. Sweeping vistas of their couples therapist's office.

Mrs. Pidgeon: That little girl whose mother is in the, um, "threesome." Why do you say she's confused about her gender? She seems perfectly normal to me.
Sparrow: Mom, she's a boy.
Mrs. Pidgeon: Oh. Well then, I'm not quite so worried about that revealing top. I was going to speak to her mother.

No solo éramos invertidos, éramos inversiones el uno del otro

Cynthia: To be honest, I've been rethinking things lately. I mean, I'm still a Christian, but I'm definitely transitioning.
Janis: Really? Is your mom letting you do hormones? Mine won't.

Again, the troubling gap between word and meaning. My feeble language skills could not bear the weight of such a laden experience.

The idea that our unconscious possesses such sure aim excited me. I became more attuned to my own erroneously carried out actions.