Emotional Restriction Quotes

When I have a girlfriend, I feel caged in, I don't know why.

Everybody who works under any system feels confined. It is a natural reaction. You are confined to a certain extent. You are confined if you work in a bank, if you paint. You are confined, in a sense, to your art - the enclosure of your mind. Everybody should break out.

We're not accustomed to giving women the space to express the full range of emotions and flaws that men are permitted. Anger and aggressiveness aren't part of the scale of what is acceptable behavior in women, whereas men - in reality and in fiction - are allowed a much fuller range of emotion.

In fact I've reached the stage where I look at people and say - he or she, they are whole at all because they've chosen to block off at this stage or that. People stay sane by blocking off, by limiting themselves.

That it really began in the days when the Love Laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much.

It's still unacceptable for women to have negative emotions, especially anger, and I was trying to write against that.

My feelings, gratitude, for instance, are denied me simply because of my social position.

I think the gender norms of emotion are horrendous. Being masculine means showing zero emotions, but having the choice to be angry or depressed. Being female means you are one dimensional - if you show more than that, you are a psycho, hysterical, or historically, a witch.

Now, unless someone's, like, 50 or older, they're meant to behave like girls. And it's a broad stroke: It's not just a moment of being vulnerable and girlish.