The Power Notebooks Quotes

“We often describe women who write about pain or vulnerabilities as 'brave,' but this type of confession is so frequently exchanged, so par for the course, so deeply and comfortably ensconced in the language of female confidences, so nearly de rigueur in the kind of personal writing ascendant now, so deeply woven in the way women get along with each other in the world generally that bravery may not be quite the right word. It is, in a way, something more like capitulating.”
― Katie Roiphe, The Power Notebooks

“One learns from girlhood to fear the competitive energy, the ambient fury and resentment that can be aimed at powerful females. And yet at the same time, women often want or need power. The goal, then, is to take power in a way that navigates that rage or resentment; it is a little like trying to feed a dragon without getting burned.”
― Katie Roiphe, The Power Notebooks

“The instinct is so deep and ingrained that it is inseparable from personality or style itself. We all do some version of this in the course of an average day: diffuse competition, brush off compliments, be self-depreciating, anticipate and dismantle the question 'What makes her think she is so special?' before it even begins to form in someone's head. Protestations of disorganization, of not being pulled together, these are such common currency in female interactions that we are barely even aware of them. One woman saying 'You look great,' the other saying without thinking, 'Oh, I haven't slept in forever. I have the hugest circles under my eyes.”
― Katie Roiphe, The Power Notebooks

“Someone is talking about perfectionism: 'I felt like if I got all As in school, if I excelled at everything and won prizes, my father would stop doing drugs. Our house would stop being the meth house.' If something out of control is scaring you, you can be perfect. 'Of course,' the woman goes on, 'I was never perfect. There is always more I could do. And even if I was somehow able to be perfect, my father would not stop doing drugs. Even if I was perfect, he would not love me. It took me a long time to figure that one out. To stop trying.”
― Katie Roiphe, The Power Notebooks

“In the light of day, it's hard to understand why I am derailed by a tiny thing like getting out of a taxi on a Sunday night. Of course, right behind the fear that I can't manage on my own is another more terrifying fear: that I can.”
― Katie Roiphe, The Power Notebooks

“[Simone de Beauvoir] provoked and disturbed feminists with her famous comment about her relationship with Sartre: 'There has been one undoubted success in my life: my relationship with Sartre.' I can almost understand. She adapts her whole being to the situation. She will not be hurt because she will change herself like a sculptor working in clay. She labors for it, sacrifices for it. It is an achievement, a consummately creative act: she invents herself in it.”
― Katie Roiphe, The Power Notebooks

“Françoise Gilot talking to a friend at the beginning of her relationship with Picasso:

'"You're headed for a catastrophe," she said. I told her she was probably right but I felt it was the kind of catastrophe I didn't want to avoid.”
― Katie Roiphe, The Power Notebooks

“I was also working on the question: Why hadn't I extricated myself sooner? Why had I not reacted for so long? Why couldn't I give up the idea sooner of marriage and at least entertained the possibility of being on my own sooner? The version of myself who was worrying about the correct way to press the elevator button was not actually me, so why had I allowed her to exist and walk around and go to playgrounds and sit in libraries and shop for dinner for so long?”
― Katie Roiphe, The Power Notebooks

“Janet Malcolm: ‘We are all perpetually smoothing and rearranging reality to conform to our wishes; we lie to others and to ourselves constantly, unthinkingly. When, occasionally — and not by dint of our own efforts but under the pressure of external events — we are forced to see things as they are, we are like naked people in a storm. There are a few among us — psychoanalysts have encountered them — who are blessed or cursed with a strange imperviousness to the unpleasantness of self-knowledge. Their lies to themselves are so convincing that they are never unmasked.”
― Katie Roiphe, The Power Notebooks