Case Study Quotes

“If I learned anything it was that no matter how much material comfort you throw at a human being, we will always find something to be miserable about. We are programmed for dissatisfaction. We always want more.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“The default in life is to go on. Without intervention, life continues, as if it is an entity that exists independently of its custodian. To terminate a life requires an effort of will.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“I myself have the ability to do repetitive tasks, or stare into space for long periods of time without feeling the least bit bored. There is always something going on if one looks hard enough. Tiny dramas unfold all around us. Intellectuals like Veronica are oblivious to this, however. They are too busy thinking to notice anything.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“Intellectuals are the trickiest nuts to crack. They are so eager to impress you with their own understanding of their condition that they tend to carry on their own commentary as they are talking.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“I had been having nasty, malicious thoughts for as long as I could remember, but that little lock granted me licence. Here was a book in which I could record and confine them.

It is a curious thing that, as far as I know, boys are not presented with such diaries. Boys are uncomplicated creatures. They swarm around shouting, fighting or chasing balls— noisily being—while we girls sit demurely on the sidelines nursing our resentment. Boys have no need for secrets. Everything just pours out of them. Girls are required to keep themselves to themselves.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“Girls are required to keep themselves to themselves.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“it must be remembered that he was not just another human being: he was a man. I had been brought up to think of men as predators and myself as a victim, and no application of logic could gainsay this dogma.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“To be in another country, speaking another language, was to be another person, and in being another person I felt for the first time that I was myself.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“Forget about meaning’, he said. ‘Life’s not about meaning, it’s about experience.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“I’m beginning to wonder if you really are who you say you are.’
‘I often wonder the same thing.’ Rebecca responded, rather deftly, I thought. (She is so much brighter than me; I sometimes wonder whether I shouldn’t let her take over completely.)”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“Her handbag, he said, was found on the scene. I made a mental note to carry out a thorough spring clean of contents of my own bag before throwing myself in front of any trains.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“It is impossible to walk behind someone on a narrow cliff path without the idea of shoving them over the edge crossing one’s mind.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“I loathe children, with their sticky faces, scabby knees and noise (always their infernal noise). And that is to say nothing of the horrifying matter of giving birth, or the filthy business of copulation.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“The young man turned to me and pulled a face like a comically chastened schoolboy. I rolled my eyes in sympathy, and thus we were in cahoots.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“I have always detested the ghastly pasttimes upon which girls are encouraged to squander their lives. Spending hours squinting over an embroidery ring does not strike me as a worthwhile use of anyone's time. For the lower classes, sewing or knitting may be a necessity, but we are not paupers and there is no need for me to go about in homemade togs. Of course, there is the piano, but since Veronica's death it has been no more than an ornament. ... So I spent my evenings in the brocade armchair reading novels about Modern Independent Women who throw it all up at the first whiff of matrimony.

I long ago resolved never to become a Modern Independent Woman. I do not myself understand this current mania for freedom. It seems to me that we would all be a good deal better off if we accepted our lot in life, rather than struggling to throw off some imagined shackles. I realise that not everyone is as fortunate as me, but this constant striving for things above one's station is no more than a recipe for discontent. I want nothing more than to look after my father and be able to treat myself now and then to a new coat or a pair of stockings. That is not to say that when I am out and about, I do not sometimes feel a stab of envy towards those to whom success comes easily, but we cannot all be tip-toppers. It is better all round to accept one's allotted portion in life. All the needlepoint and pianoforte in the world cannot alter the fact that, for most of us, quiet despair is the best we can hope for.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“I am the middling type, for whom flirtation is neither a demeaning jape nor an Icarus-like tilt at the sun. Flirting with a middling girl is a dangerous business, because we might - indeed, we probably will - take it seriously. And before the poor chap knows it, there'll be a bun in the oven and a hastily arranged rendezvous at the Registry Office.”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Case Study

“«Si algo aprendí —escribe—, es que por muchas comodidades materiales que le arrojes a un ser humano, siempre encontraremos algo que nos haga sentir miserables. Estamos programados para la insatisfacción. Siempre queremos más. Más muebles, más artilugios, más sexo, más amor. Codiciamos lo que posee el otro, de la misma manera que el otro codicia lo que nosotros tenemos. Es el agente del descontento perpetuo.»”
― Graeme Macrae Burnet, Caso clínico