Emma Woolf > Quotes

“Being constantly hungry is no life at all.”
― Emma Woolf, The Ministry of Thin

“The notion that life could be any different - that it could be better - becomes inconceivable. You forget how good it was to be normal. Worst of all, you come to believe that you prefer it this way.”
― Emma Woolf, An Apple a Day: A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia

“Basically, when it comes to women, both aging and eating are somehow shameful.”
― Emma Woolf, An Apple a Day: A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia

“Then I took a shower, unlocked the door, and set out on destroying myself.”
― Emma Woolf, An Apple a Day: A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia

“Are we really going to spend our whole lives like this, feeling the wrong shape and the wrong weight in the wrong skin?”
― Emma Woolf, The Ministry of Thin

“When everything is available, nothing is ever enough.”
― Emma Woolf, The Ministry of Thin

“Anorexia is, without doubt, a serious eating disorder, but there is a hell of a lot of mainstream disordered eating going on out there.”
― Emma Woolf, The Ministry of Thin

“The fact is, women aren’t having cosmetic surgery to stay beautiful. As Naomi Wolf wrote in The Beauty Myth more than twenty years ago, many women who undergo surgery are fighting to stay loved, relevant, employed, admired; they’re fighting against time running out. If they simply age naturally, don’t diet or dye their hair, we feel they’ve “let themselves go.” But if they continue to dress youthfully we feel they’re “trying too hard” or brand them as “slappers.” Poor Madonna, who has dared to be in her fifties. In order not to look like a woman in her sixth decade of life she exercises furiously, and is sniggered at by trashy magazines for having overly muscular arms and boytoy lovers. When Demi Moore’s marriage to Ashton Kutcher, fifteen years her junior, recently broke down, the media reaction was almost gleeful. Of course, it was what they had been waiting for all along: how long could a forty-eight-year-old woman expect to keep a thirty-three-year-old man? As allegations of his infidelity emerged, the Internet was flooded with images of Demi looking gaunt and unhappy—and extremely thin. Sometimes you want to say: just leave them alone. Then again, it’s mostly women who buy these magazines, and women who write the editorials and online comments and gossip columns, so you could say we’re our own worst enemies. There is already plenty of ageism and sexism out there—why do we add to the body hatred?”
― Emma Woolf, An Apple a Day: A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia

“A suicide is tragic because nothing interrupted it.”
― Emma Woolf, An Apple a Day: A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia

“I wondered, Why would you run with someone else? Why would you choose to share this intense, solitary activity, mile after mile, in sunshine and rain, alone with your thoughts, every step making you leaner, firmer, every mile taking you farther from the lazy, lethargic world? Like writing and eating, I couldn’t stand to share my running. It was such a personal thing: a therapeutic punishment, a way to push, push, push myself.”
― Emma Woolf, An Apple a Day: A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia

“When I look back, I can which year it was not from events or the actual date, but the way I was feeling.”
― Emma Woolf, An Apple a Day: A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia

“For me, women’s attitudes to eating, hunger and their bodies are fascinating and confusing in equal measure. I find myself simultaneously involved and alienated, both a participant and an outsider. Of course I understand what women mean when they talk about food and weight; I understand when they refer to being good (dieting), or feeling guilty (greedy), or treating themselves (cake). I get it when women talk about disliking specific parts of their bodies. But it’s hard too, emerging from a decade of severe eating restriction, to look around me for examples of how to eat normally, and how to accept myself, to find that the majority of women are struggling with these issues too. Rationally we know that getting thinner won’t make us happier or more fulfilled – and yet we never give up trying.”
― Emma Woolf, The Ministry of Thin

“Let me explain. Say you have an eating disorder like anorexia - you’ve probably been hiding the condition for a long time. After months or years, you face your demons, with or without therapy, you admit you’re ill and eventually decide you want to recover. But this is only half the battle. Once start to eat again, once you begin to gain weight, it’s unbelievably stressful. Having gone from absolute control over every calorie which goes into your mouth, you’re now being forced to double, maybe even triple that amount. You’re being forced to consume unsafe substances like butter, oil, nuts. Every mouthful takes a colossal effort. In your rigid anorexic mindset, not being underweight equates to being overweight. Not being hungry equates to greed. Giving up an eating disorder is frightening. It is almost impossible to imagine that the process will ever be ok.”
― Emma Woolf

“In fact, I think the cleverest people must be pessimistic, depressed, because they are realistic, and they see how the world really is.”
― Emma Woolf

“We may live in concrete jungles, but we still need to feel the earth beneath our feet, the rain on our faces and the wind in our hair. We continue to love the wild places and still yearn to get back to nature.”
― Emma Woolf, Positively Primal: Finding Health and Happiness in a Hectic World

“People, especially women, are judged on their bodies. And food, far from being a source of energy and enjoyment, becomes a battleground of guilt and shame and excess and deprivation. Everywhere we look, success and sexiness and happiness seem to belong to the thin.”
― Emma Woolf

“Ricordate la frase di Kate Moss: "Nulla ha un sapore più buono come sentirsi magre"?
Ebbene si sbagliava, il cioccolato è più buono.”
― Emma Woolf, An Apple a Day: A Memoir of Love and Recovery from Anorexia

“No one can turn back the clock. Lie about your age if you want, but we're all going in the same direction.”
― Emma Woolf, The Ministry of Thin