Quotes from Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“i held hands
with my sadness,
sang it songs in the shower,
fed it lunch,
got it drunk
& put it to bed early.”
― Sabrina Benaim, quote from Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“mom says where did anxiety come from?
anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town
depression felt obliged to bring to the party.
mom, i am the party.
only, i am a party i don't want to be at.”
― Sabrina Benaim, quote from Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“mom still doesn't understand.

mom,
can't you see?
neither do i.”
― Sabrina Benaim, quote from Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“how do i teach my ears to hear songs without the ghosts of you inside of them?”
― Sabrina Benaim, quote from Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company.”
― Sabrina Benaim, quote from Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“mom, i am lonely.
i think i learnt it when dad left;
how to turn the anger into lonely,
the lonely into busy.”
― Sabrina Benaim, quote from Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“my heart has developed a kind of amnesia, where it remembers everything but itself.”
― Sabrina Benaim, quote from Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“i am sleepwalking on an ocean of happiness i cannot baptize myself in.”
― Sabrina Benaim, quote from Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“when i see a candle, i see the flesh of a church.
the flicker of life sparks a memory younger than noon;
i am standing beside her open casket,
it is the moment i realize every person i ever come to know will someday die,
besides, mom, i'm not afraid of the dark,
perhaps that is part of the problem.”
― Sabrina Benaim, quote from Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“it's weird how a jacket can be more reliable than a father.”
― Sabrina Benaim, quote from Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“my happy is a high fever that will break, my happy is as hollow as a pin-pricked egg”
― Sabrina Benaim, quote from Depression & Other Magic Tricks

“& my heart has developed a kind of amnesia, where it remembers everything but itself.”
― Sabrina Benaim, quote from Depression & Other Magic Tricks

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Popular quotes

“A circle only knows its own shape. If you ask where it begins and where it ends, it will stay silent, yet unbroken.”
― Emmi Itäranta, quote from Memory of Water

“It is always the little things that build up. Often there is no dramatic reason for discontent in marriages. It seeps in slowly over the years.
You don't even notice it creeping in. It happens, trickle by trickle.
You do not realise when or how the easy familiarity gets replaced by a 'taken-for-granted' attitude over the years. By the time you do, it is often late. Habits have been formed, patterns have been set. And a comfort-zone have been established.

A zone that is hard to get out of.”
― Preeti Shenoy, quote from The Secret Wish List

“Naturalness?’ I said, loudly. ‘This lot’ll tell you anything is natural; they’ll tell you greed and hate and jealousy and paranoia and unthinking religious awe and fear of God and hating anybody who’s another colour or thinks different is natural. Hating blacks or hating whites or hating women or hating men or hating gays; that’s natural. Dog-eat-dog, looking out for number one, no lame ducks . . . Shit, they’re so convinced about what’s natural it’s the more sophisticated ones that’ll tell you suffering and evil are natural and necessary because otherwise you can’t have pleasure and goodness. They’ll tell you any one of their rotten stupid systems is the natural and right one, the one true way; what’s natural to them is whatever they can use to fight their own grimy corner and fuck everybody else. They’re no more natural than us than an amoeba is more natural than them just because it’s cruder.”
― Iain M. Banks, quote from The State of the Art

“Time is, to put it in its most impressive and some might say poncy-sounding form, my domain. I can see things that once happened, even if they haven't happened any more. Well, if I concentrate. The new reality-the real reality- keeps asserting itself, even with me. But the other time line leaves echoes, ripples, if you look hard enough.”
― Jacqueline Rayner, quote from Doctor Who: The Stone Rose

“It really is an instinct, the knack of dealing with irrational people, Natalie was thinking; I suppose any mind like mine, which is so close, actually, to the irrational and so tempted by it, is able easily to pass the dividing line between rational and irrational and communicate with someone drunk, or insane, or asleep.”
― Shirley Jackson, quote from Hangsaman

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About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.