I don't own my emotions unless I can think about them. I am not afraid of feeling but I am afraid of feeling unthinkingly. I don't want to drown. My head is my heart's lifebelt.
Interpretation
Being mindful of one's emotions is crucial to avoid being overwhelmed by them.
This quote emphasizes the importance of self-awareness in managing emotions. Jeanette Winterson suggests that while it is natural to feel emotions deeply, one should strive to understand and reflect on these feelings rather than being consumed by them. By acknowledging and thinking about her emotions, she prevents herself from feeling lost or overwhelmed, symbolically describing her head as a lifebelt that keeps her heart afloat.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a mental health awareness event to encourage emotional intelligence.
What is remembered is not a deed in stone but a metaphor. Meta = above. Pheren = to carry. That which is carried above the literalness of life. A way of thinking that avoids the problems of gravity. The word won't let me down. The single word that can release me from all that unuttered weight.
Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become.
I have a list of titles that I leave at the [library] desk, because they are bound to be written some day, and it's best to be ahead of the queue.
Woolf wanted to say dangerous things in Orlando but she did not want to say them in the missionary position.
In that house, you will find my heart. You must break in, Henri, and get it back for me.' Was she mad? We had been talking figuratively. Her heart was in her body like mine. I tried to explain this to her, but she took my hand and put it against her chest. Feel for yourself.
History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.
You know, many people have said that I'm on the edge and I'm maverick for some of the big operations that I've done. I'm not at all. I pray; I ask God to give me wisdom, 'Should I do it?', guidance in terms of how to do it, who to consult with. All those kind of things are incredibly important.
Those who are ashamed of what they ought not to be ashamed; and are not ashamed of what they ought to be - such men, embracing erroneous views, enter the woeful path.
It is easier to make our wishes conform to our means than to make our means conform to our wishes.
I was looking in the mirror the other day and I realized I haven't changed much since I was in my twenties. The only difference is I look a whole lot older now.
Obviously, a man's judgement cannot be better than the information on which he has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning processes, and make him something less than a man.
There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.
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