Catharsis Quotes

“Because it is dangerous to ignore the existence of the irrational. The more cultivated a person is, the more intelligent, the more repressed, then the more he needs some method of channeling the primitive impulses he's worked so hard to subdue. Otherwise those powerful old forces will mass and strengthen until they are violent enough to break free, more violent for the delay, often strong enough to sweep the will away entirely.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“. . .from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.”
― Maurice Sendak

“The power of music, whether joyous or cathartic must steal on one unawares, come spontaneously as a blessing or a grace--”
― Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

“The God way. Talking about God this and God that. Fuck God, he had actually wanted to say. Fuck God for having made this world, fucked be his name, now and for fucking ever, fuck God for our lives, fuck God for not saving us, fuck God for not being here and for not saving the men burning on the fucking bamboo.”
― Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North

“Seven smirked as he walked back over to me. "I gave you catharsis last night. Twice.”
― T.J. Klune, Burn

“People ask all the time what I learned in the camps. But the camps weren’t therapy. What do you think these places were? Universities? We didn’t go there to learn. One becomes very clear about these things. What are you asking for? Forgiveness for her? Or do you just want to feel better yourself? My advice, go to the theatre, if you want catharsis, please. Go to literature. Don't go to the camps. Nothing comes out of the camps. Nothing.”
― Bernhard Schlink, The Reader

“I needed pain; I needed blood. Judge me if you want, but I’m talking about my own body. My own catharsis. About marking myself with beauty instead of ugliness.”
― Heather Durham, Going Feral: Field Notes on Wonder and Wanderlust

“The day you stop listening to your chaos,
it will start transforming into catharsis.”
― Chandrama Deshmukh, A Teaspoon Of Stars

“Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd,
Let darkness keep her raven gloss:
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,
To dance with death, to beat the ground,

Than that the victor Hours should scorn
The long result of love, and boast,
`Behold the man that loved and lost,
But all he was is overworn.”
― Alfred Lord Tension

“Sometimes it’s good for you to be spectacularly stupid.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, Field Notes on Love

“Shaving is always cathartic, much like showering, changing out of clothes, anything where what once was carried during a moment or period of distress is purged.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“That night we camped on the shore of a flourishing green land. Around their fires, the men were tense and quiet, muffled by dread. I could hear their whispers, the wine sloshing as they passed it. No man wanted to lie awake imagining tomorrow.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“The unbelievable that came true stayed with me, and I believed in the unbelievable, in the star that had followed me through life, and with its gleam constantly before my eyes I began to believe in it more and more, because it had made me a millionaire, and now that I had been brought to my knees I realized that my star was brighter than ever, that only now would I be able to see its true brightness, because my eyes had been weakened by everything I had lived through, weakened so that they could see more and know more.”
― Bohumil Hrabal, I Served the King of England

“In the past, catharsis was the purification of the passions by fire. Today it is their liquidation by flow.”
― Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories IV, 1995-2000

“The good thing about crying, I’d realized, was the catharsis you felt when everything finally came out. It was as though I’d cried tears of poison; poison that didn’t have to be inside me anymore.”
― Jeremy Jenkins, My Dad's Best Friend

“General audiences may want escapism but what they need is catharsis.”
― J. Andrew Schrecker

“C’est peut-être ça qu’on cherche à travers la vie, rien que cela, le plus grand chagrin possible pour devenir soi-même avant de mourir.”
― Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night

“A teardrop glittered like a diamond in the ring of her eye. When they're at the bottom, people fill their eyes with beautiful things. The world is full of art, it's just a matter of knowing how to look around you and then surrendering to inexhaustible whisperings, to small details, to longing and desire.”
― Bohumil Hrabal

“Sometimes we must do what we can to keep our mistakes a secret, don't we?”
― Jessa Maxwell, The Golden Spoon

“Empty out the darkness that has accumulated at the bottom of your heart, all the words you refuse to say.”
― Nikita Gill

“First of all, Mr. Cheating Bastard, this is no time to be insulting my car-care abilities, and secondly, she doesn't want to talk to you."
He hung his head. "It is true, I have been a bad husband, a stupid man, and a careless friend, but I love my wife and I must talk to her."
He really looked dreadful, which was satisfying. I shook my head.
"Did you just arrive?" He nodded. "Then you haven't unpacked yet, which will save you some time. Go back to Italy, Berto, back to your little girlfriend."
"She is gone. It is over."
I switched over to disgusted frown. "Well. Maggie is not a consolation prize, shithead. She's the trophy, the Pulitzer, the Nobel. The fact that your girlfriend dumped you means nothing. Go home.”
― Abbi Waxman, The Garden of Small Beginnings

“Berto." Voice like ice.
"Maggie, cara mia!" Voice like fire.
He leapt forward to embrace her, but she held up her hand, her face grave. I noticed she'd freshened her lipstick, though. No dummy, that one.
"Back off! I am not going to forgive you, so don't fritter your charm. You broke my heart and sent me flying home like a kicked dog." Maggie was just warming up. "I fled my home, my work, my friends. Every single person we know, our colleagues, our neighbors, knew I had been thrown over for a younger woman and pitied me. I am not to be pitied, Berto. I am a proud and beautiful woman, and I am the one who should be pitying you. But I don't pity you, because you made your own bed. Now go back to Italy and lie in it. Alone.”
― Abbi Waxman, The Garden of Small Beginnings

“Through honeycombs of stone would now be wandering the passions in their clay. There would be tears and there would be strange laughter. Fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings. And dreams and violence and disenchantment.”
― Mervyn Peake, The Gormenghast Novels

“He sat there and read in silence, in pure adulterated silence and he found it strangely cathartic. He had read this book before and knew it had a happy ending. The sort of ending that makes a man believe there is still some good to be found in this world. Ewald needed to believe in good because he could feel it fading within himself”
― J.R. Potts, Visitor on The Mountain

“To avoid blowups I stuff stuff - the patient patient.”
― Brian Spellman, We have our difference in common 2.

“Your life has been difficult so far and you’ve been through a lot. Although this realization is not the most comfortable and optimistic one to help you see the future, it is part of this greater process that is called catharsis.”
― Terry Ouzounelli, Catharsis: The reason why you are here

“You start to see that life is a struggle by default. How impossible it is to enjoy life without money. But the same happens with going through life in general, by trying to be there, to stay alive.”
― Terry Ouzounelli, Catharsis: The reason why you are here

“This transformation process can last a few months or even years. However, after a while, you start to realize that nothing has actually changed. Same shit, different toilet.”
― Terry Ouzounelli, Catharsis: The reason why you are here

“I fall. I fall and fall, air whipping my face, my shredded arms and legs. It’s almost a relief. A relief to know that everything is going to end in just another instant, when my body hits the water, when every bone breaks, and I sink beneath the waves. I’ll be dead then, and the pain flaring through my senses from all those deadly cuts will be over. The fear of the future will be over as well, and my ten years of enslavement. All will be done.”
― Sylvia Mercedes, Entranced

“People tell each other stories in order to become friends. But what happens when one of those friends is gone? I don’t know, but maybe those stories help us reach catharsis.”
― Mike Klepper