Nancy Friday Quotes

So what is it with your mother that you haven't worked out yet?

I know in my life there's stuff that will come back because I haven't dealt with it, and it's the same with everybody.

Many of my deepest insecurities stem from my issues with my dad.

Thematically, I like playing with the ideas of stuff that you try to bury, and you think will go away, but instead you carry it with you until it becomes crippling. And sometimes you have to look back and deal with some stuff in order to truly move forward.

It will be very difficult for whoever will be with me, not even in marriage, whoever goes out with me seriously. Even if she doesn't look remotely like my mother, she will be compared to her.

Your past is not your past if it's still impacting your present.

We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.

Sometimes it's hard to tell where your instincts start and your baggage stops.

The great thing about all my siblings is we all agree we had a horrendous childhood. It's not like it doesn't affect us now; it affects us every day, in everything we do.

Blaming mother is just a negative way of clinging to her still.

For a long time I was scared I'd find out I was like my mother.

At this point, if I were to psychoanalyze myself, I'd have to say I am a clown, cleverly disguised as a regular person.

I've got a lot of issues. I've got a whole lot of daddy issues.

My parents are really well intended, and I think their way of dealing with things is denial and guilt. Nobody wanted to talk about it. But all I did was blame myself.

Young men are obsessed with their dads, and they remain obsessed if the dad is not around. Remember that there was a lot of discussion about how George W. Bush might have invaded Iraq to atone for the failures of his dad.

I took the fear of marriage from my parents' relationship, because I didn't want to end up in a relationship like that, whereas my brothers and sisters learnt a lesson from it and made sure they didn't carry it on into their own marriages.

It is one of the ironies of my life and in many lives that whenever you are the happiest, all of this stuff from the past will come pushing up and demand to be noticed.

When someone is denying what they are, then that's when things start to spiral down.

I seem to have fallen for women with missing parents. Goodness knows what it signifies.

I'm trying to put the past to rest, but things just keep popping up to just pull me back in.

Everything you say in a family carries meaning from all that was said before. So with friends, there is less likelihood of a few words triggering associations from childhood, where our deepest emotions often are rooted.

Unless you come to terms with your past... it haunts you, and you never leave it.

You know, some people can't get past their past, I guess. I certainly haven't.

Moms and dads don't last forever. If you've got unfinished business, we need to face that, and that's not easy. Every child wants to love their mother and their father. Love is the most important thing, and when they feel rejected and unloved, that hole can never be filled by anyone else.

I don't want to keep talking about my upbringing because people always resort to the past and what happened when I was younger.