I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This: A Memoir

by Nadja Spiegelman

“It is the most meaningless adjective.” It would take me years to unlearn that. To realize that nice was rare.

There’s no physiological difference between what you experience and what you imagine. That’s the reason we’re always telling stories, why in every culture there are myths. We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we interpret them.

“Having a writer in the family is like having a murderer in the family,” my father told me wryly, and often, in reference to both himself and me.

“There was no wall,” my mother said. “Why didn’t you tell me!” Josée said. “I would have built you a wall.”

I love you to the point of creation

“It’s my present to myself. To let myself have a mother I love. That’s all I want.”