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Daphne Merkin Biography

Daphne Miriam Merkin (born 30 May 1954 in New York City) is an American literary critic, essayist and novelist. Merkin is a graduate of Barnard College. She also attended Columbia University's graduate program in English literature.

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Daphne Merkin Quotes

Then again, as those who suffer from it know, intractable depression creates a planet all its own, largely impermeable to influence from others except as shadow presences, urging you to come out and rejoin the world, take in a movie, go out for a bite, cheer up.

Cheer, Except, Intractable, Shadow, Suffering

It was through reading that I discovered the crucial, even sacrosanct place the rituals of drinking held in the American imagination - the ingenious way alcohol seemed to lubricate everything from onerous chitchat to self-conscious sexual advances.

Alcohol, Drinking, Place, Reading, Sacrosanct, Self

My mother is the source of my unease in the world and thus the only person who can make me feel at home in the world.

Home, Make, Mother, Person, Unease, World

Much as I try to disguise myself, there is never a time when I'm not aware of being overweight.

Aware, Disguise, Overweight, Trying

Naturally, our own irrational demands strike us as having the force of needs, while other people's needs strike us as capricious indulgences.

Capricious, Demand, Demands, Needs, People, Strike

How much simpler it would be all around if you could put your mind in a cast, like a broken ankle, and elicit murmurings of sympathy from other people instead of skepticism (“You can’t really be feeling as bad as all that”) and in some cases outright hostility (“Maybe if you stopped thinking about yourself so much ”).

Bad, Broken, Mind, People, Simpler, Thinking About You

No bill of sexual rights can hold its own against the lawless, untamable landscape of the erotic imagination.

Erotic, Imagination, Rights, Sex, Sexual

It might pay to be resilient, if this was all being vulnerable and skinless got you. People didn’t stop and cluck over damage done unless you made it worth their while. Indeed, maybe it was time to rethink this whole salvation business. Or maybe I was less desperate, less teetering on the edge than I cared to admit. Now, that was a refreshing possibility.

Business, Done, Might, People, Salvation, Whole

Everything felt fragile and freshly come upon, but for now, at least, my depression had stepped back, giving me room to move forward. I had forgotten what it was like to be without it, and for a moment I floundered, wondering how I would recognize myself. I knew for certain it would return, sneaking up on me when I wasn’t looking, but meanwhile there were bound to be glimpses of light if only I stayed around and held fast to the long perspective. It was a chance that seemed worth taking.

Chance, Light, Long, Moving, Stepped, Worth

I always look to people and think whether they seem well-loved or not well-loved. That's one way I walk through life. Do they have some core that withstands the ravages? Everyone gets pulled down in life and has good moments. But it always interests me how people withstand things.

Everyone, Life, Moments, People, Things, Thinking

There's something stubborn about families, unhappy ones in particular: they outlive themselves, and then they live on.

Family, Live, Ones, Outlive, Stubborn, Unhappy

I think the experience of depression that I most think remains true throughout the years is it's very isolating. That to me is its strongest quality. That you're alone in a room, that you're cut off, you're just sort of stuck with it. It puts up a wall.

Cutting, Sort, Think, Thinking, True, Wall

I see depression as an exponentially developed version of a human condition. Meaning I always think in the end it's humanizing. People who never suffer from depression I find suspect. I assume Donald Trump is not a sufferer from depression.

Depression, People, Suffer, Suffering, Think, Thinking

Everyone lies about sex, more or less, to themselves if not to others, to others if not to themselves, exaggerating its importance or minimizing its pull.

Importance, Lying, Minimizing, Pull, Sex

Daphne Merkin Biography

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