Judith Viorst Quotes

He loved her for being so beautiful, and he hated her for it. He loved how she put shiny stuff on her lips for him, and he also reviled her for it. He wanted her to walk home alone, and he wanted to run after her and grab her up before she could take another step.

Only one thing bothered me: at this very moment, as they say, of inexplicable bliss there would be a sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach and my abdomen would be assailed by a melancholy, cold shivering. In the end I couldn't abide such happiness and ran away.

I didn’t know how I could live with that knowledge, without it eating me up, without it poisoning every happy memory I had of growing up. Without it ruining everything Beck and I had. I didn’t understand how someone could be both God and the devil. How the same person could destroy you and save you. When everything I was, good and bad, was knotted with threads of his making, how was I supposed to know whether to love or hate him?

There is nothing in the world more pitiable than an irresolute man, oscillating between two feelings, who would willingly unite the two and who does not perceive that nothing can unite them

Sweet Skepticism of the Heart That knows and does not know And tosses like a Fleet of Balm Affronted by the snow.

It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness

Modern science knows much about such conflicts. We call the mental state that engenders it "ambivalence": a collision between thought and feeling.

I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed this sleepless night. I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to meet his eye.

I hate, and yet must love the thing I hate.

The more I think of you, the less I think of you.

When I first met you, I felt a kind of contradiction in you. You’re seeking something, but at the same time, you are running away for all you’re worth.

I am a strange compound of weakness and resolution! However, if I must suffer, I will endeavour to suffer in silence. There is certainly a great defect in my mind my wayward heart creates its own misery Why I am made thus I cannot tell; and, till I can form some idea of the whole of my existence, I must be content to weep and dance like a child long for a toy, and be tired of it as soon as I get it.

He looks like the sort of man who can't afford to leave, and doesn't want to stay, and so he is doing both at once.

She wanted him to stop, but more than that, she wanted him to go on forever.

There are urges and urges; you are exploding with urges, desires. You don't have one desire, you have many desires. Not only that you have many desires, you have contradictory desires. If one is fulfilled, the other, which is its contradiction, remains unfulfilled and you are in misery. If the other is fulfilled, then something else remains unfulfilled.

Faust complained about having two souls in his breast, but I harbor a whole crowd of them and they quarrel. It is like being in a republic.

Ambivalence is a wonderful tune to dance to. It has a rhythm all its own.

I'm really schizophrenic about that, because on the one hand I would say, yes there is, there's something inherently, even violent about it, it's wild and raw and all this.

I became conflicted in my late teens.

Love commingled with hate is more powerful than love. Or hate.

It's not like you make a decision and everything inside you is 100 percent happy.

Oftentimes we love the thing we hate and vice versa.

I don't feel like a 40-year-old. I feel more like four 10-year-olds, each pulling in a different direction.

But I've always been fascinated with that prettiest-girl-in-the-class person that I never was, getting inside her head and showing that she's just as tormented and messed up as everybody else.

I've said things and meant them, but I'm obviously a very confused person who has no idea how they feel about things.