Empathy Quotes

“...people are no longer interested in analysis. They all prefer catharsis now. They all prefer to say that they are helpless and can’t change other people, i.e. the world. Marxism has been replaced by postmodernism. Psychoanalysis has been replaced by twelve-step programs. It was the end of the content.”
― Sarah Schulman, Empathy

“It takes two to tango” isn’t even true on the dance floor. One person can do a lot of evil all on his or her own. But the Theory of Mutual Blame arose sometime before Doc was even born. Perhaps it was a takeoff on Freud’s seduction theory or the more generic practice of blaming victims for being alive. Its origins were unclear, but no one had ever had to take full responsibility for their own actions since.”
― Sarah Schulman, Empathy

“Anna liked magazines. They were glossy machines. The only technology that she could fold. She read them on a regular basis because they were absorbing. Each one came out on a specific day of the week and was good for an hour of absorption.”
― Sarah Schulman, Empathy

“You tell them one real thing and then the doctor thinks he knows you. He starts getting arrogant and overfamiliar, making insulting suggestions left and right. You have to protest constantly just to set the record straight. Finally he makes offensive assumptions and throws them in your face. A stranger in a bar could do the same…”
― Sarah Schulman, Empathy

“Doc didn’t have a television but he could predict that sort of thing. He just didn’t need one. He could always tell what was on TV when he heard more than two people in a row say the same strange phrase in the same way. He knew that they had just seen it on television. A few weeks later everyone would have those words written on their chests.”
― Sarah Schulman, Empathy

“Some people have sex by putting fishhooks in each other. Couple this act with a simple understanding of the basic function of all living creatures to expand and contract. Now, try that with fishhooks.”
― Sarah Schulman, Empathy

“Do most gay women love each other?” Doc asked.
“A lot of them love closeted movie stars.”
― Sarah Schulman, Empathy

“I dreamt that I took William Burrough’s penis and tied it up with piano wire. I hung him like a Chagall painting…In the next part J.G. Ballard swam through streets of female urine. The girls read his book Crash and then mowed him down with their Volkswagen, crushing his chest slowly against a brick wall. As he screamed in agony larger than representation can accommodate, they referred to his text and had orgasms. Later, they jumped up and down yelling, ‘You’re not a hero. You’re not a hero. You’re not. You’re not. You’re not.’ “
“How do you analyze that part of the dream, Anna?”
…”I guess I’m nervous about my birthday.”
― Sarah Schulman, Empathy

“All along, he had believed instinctually that his broken heart had something to do with the collapse of culture. He wanted to blame it on economics instead of on the fact that she was a fucking bitch.”
― Sarah Schulman, Empathy

“I realized that I’m not a lesbian anymore. I realized that women don’t have fun together. I realized that that’s not love. I realized that men are heroes after all…”

“What is your definition of a hero?” she asked.

“A hero is someone you can be proud of,” the woman said. “To be proud of someone he has to be bigger than you so you can look up to him. You can feel safe when he is near you. Especially a man who has soft skin. When a man is near you who has soft skin, soft and sloping like a woman’s, then you can feel safe.”

“But he’s not a woman?” “No.”

…She knew this word he. She’d heard it before in every circumstance of her life. But what did it mean? What did it really mean?

“What’s your definition of fun?” she asked.

“Fun,” the woman explained, “is when you get what you’ve always imagined. When you’ve always known what you want and then you get it. With a woman you can’t have this because you’ve never imagined what you’ve wanted. There’s no gratification. No gratification at all.”

…”There’s something very important that I don’t understand. How can I be a woman and still be happy?”

“Shut up,” the woman said. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
― Sarah Schulman, Empathy

“A veces, pensó Doc, a las personas les sienta mal que se les preste demasiada atención, porque entonces se les hincha el ego y se vuelven inmunes al pensamiento. Pero, cuando una persona es abandonada, a veces es una bendición para ella, porque entonces tiene que callarse y contar cuántos amigos tiene. Sólo entonces se le puede hablar directamente con esperanzas reales de que sirva para algo.”
― Sarah Schulman, Empathy

“She remembered the promise of an antiseptic future: domed cities and artificial weather. Somehow this was supposed to be good. Anna O. knew that hers was the last generation to believe the future would be better.”
― Sarah Schulman, Empathy