Caroline Knapp Quotes

And now I was seeing that there was something really cool about that family. All of them. They were just...real. And who were we? There was something spinning wickedly out of control inside this house. It was like seeing inside the Baker's world had opened up windows into our own, and the view was not a pretty one. Where had all this stuff come from? And why hadn't I ever seen it before.

Condemned to violence, arrested by pain. Inside the soul lies a man insane.

Inside every sane person there’s a madman struggling to get out.

...hoarders of guilty secrets are inevitably consumed with appearances.

As an experience, madness is terrific ... and in its lava I still find most of the things I write about.

When a man says he does not want to speak of something he usually means he can think of nothing else.

I inscribe three lines, hush hush hush, into my skin. Ghosts trickle out.

i discovered that my obsession for having each thing in the right place, each subject at the right time, each word in the right style, was not the well-deserved reward of an ordered mind, but just the opposite: a complete system of pretense invented by me to hide the disorder of my nature.

Deep in the secret chambers of my heart I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch I bear it nobly as I live my part.

But the heaviest things, I think, are the secrets. They can drown you if you let them.

It was a shut door, and shut doors meant things kept to yourself. There were reasons you kept things to yourself, and they usually weren’t good, happy, open-air sort of reasons. Still, I didn’t want to see behind that door. You think you want to know everything there is to know about everything there is to know. But you don’t. Not really. I had pried the lid off of the dark places of another person before, I had seen inside. Down deep. You don’t want to look at what’s rotting there.

I am pregnant with song. My body aches but do not betray me. I will sing songs and hide them away. I will tear them into bits and throw them in the street. The streets of my city are full of dark holes. I will hide my songs in the holes of the streets.

I thought about it for awhile, hiding it from the rest of my mind. But I didn't ruin my birthday by secretly thinking about it too hard

History viewed from the inside is always a dark, digestive mess, far different from the easily recognizable cow viewed from afar by historians.

In darkness one may be ashamed of what one does, without the shame of disgrace.

The great sins and fires break out of me like the terrible leaves from the bough in the violent spring. I am a walking fire, I am all leaves.

That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either.

There's this other half of him I don't know of, it's like he is trying to keep it a secret... if he would just let me inside so I can help.

That was the deal basically: catatonia without; frenzy within

I guess I was a little bit nervous, because there seemed to be so much secrecy with Ben [Stiller] wanting to make sure that it was a surprise when we walked out on the [Valentino] runway. I remember showing up at Place Vendôme and doing the fitting and seeing the pajamas that I was going to wear - which I like very much - and seeing Ben arrive kind of in disguise.

...All I want to talk about is the oncoming apocalypse in my brain.

Perhaps it is controlling the chaos within more than the chaos without.

Men scanning the surface count the wicked happy; they see not the frightful dreams that crowd a bad man's pillow.

Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.