Eileen Quotes

“I'd never learned how to relate to people, much less how to speak up for myself. I preferred to sit and rage quietly.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“I deplored silence. I deplored stillness. I hated almost everything. I was very unhappy and angry all the time. I tried to control myself, and that only made me more awkward, unhappier, and angrier. I was like Joan of Arc, or Hamlet, but born into the wrong life—the life of a nobody, a waif, invisible. There's no better way to say it: I was not myself back then. I was someone else. I was Eileen.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“People died all the time. Why couldn't I?”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“It's the map of my childhood, my sadness, my Eden, my hell and home.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“All I had to offer were my skills as a doormat, a blank wall, someone desperate enough to do anything—just short of murder, let's say—simply to get someone to like me, let alone love me.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“I felt happy. I hardly felt like myself.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“Idealism without consequences is the pathetic dream of every spoiled brat”
― Otessa Moshfegh

“It had been a long time since I'd gone anyplace I wanted to be.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“Its the map of my childhood, my sadness, my Eden, my hell and home. when I look at it now, my heart swells with gratitude, then shrinks with disgust.”
― Otessa Moshfegh

“I can't say what I was looking for exactly, though I was ever hopeful that he might come out and profess his love, save me, run away with me, solve all my problems.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“She awoke in my heart some long-sleeping dragon.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“I felt I'd walked into a scene from a movie in which someone was going mad, the air heavy with suspense.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“I had a bad habit of drumming my fists on my stomach and pinching the negligible amount of fat on my thighs. I sincerely believed that if there were less of me, I would have fewer problems”
― Otessa Moshfegh

“I searched for something in his face, anything his mask of contentment might betray, but there was nothing. He was a genius in that sense-a master. His was the best mask I'd ever seen.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“I really despised him, everyone.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“I simply can't have roommates. I like my own space.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“Perhaps I was lucky after all. It's very hard to measure out, in hindsight, who had it worse than whom.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“I'm old now. I don't move vigorously or frenetically anymore. Now I'm graceful. I move with measured and elegant precision, but I am slow. I'm like a beautiful tortoise. I don't wast my energy. Life is precious to me now.”
― Otessa Moshfegh

“Growing up, I learned I'd be praised and rewarded for my suffering, for my strong efforts to be good, but every year God smote.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“I doubt she deserved the amount of hatred I directed at her, but I loathed just about everybody back then.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen

“When I was disturbed, I took comfort in attending to my appearance. I was obsessed with the way I looked, in fact”
― Otessa Moshfegh

“Idealism without consequences is the pathetic dream of every spoiled brat, I suppose.”
― Otessa Mosfegh

“I was just a victim of isolation. If I avoided all that on purpose, I could believe I was in control.”
― Otessa Mosfegh

“You talked in your sleep,” I said. His brow furrowed. “I did?” “Yeah.” I smiled wryly. “What did I say?” “You whispered ‘come on Eileen.’” A grin spread across his face. “What do you think you wanted me to do?” I asked, tilting my head. “The same thing I always want you to do. I want you to look at me the way you look at mustard.”
― Abby Jimenez, Say You'll Remember Me

“My curiosity for the stars is obvious: I wanted something to tell me my future was bright." pg 71, Eilieen, Otessa Mosfegh”
― Otessa Mosfegh

“Perhaps it was for this reason that I wore my mother's clothes- to be vigilant in my mission never to reach even her minor proportions. As I've said , her life, the life of a woman, seemed utterly detestable to me. There was nothing I wanted less than to be somebody's mother, somebody's wife. Of course. I'd already become just that for my father by the tender age of twenty-four.”
― Otessa Mosfegh