The Silent Patient Quotes
"Once you name something, it stops you seeing the whole of it, or why it matters. You focus on the word, which is just the tiniest part, really, the tip of an iceberg."
"He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore."
"I thought it obvious that she had suffered a severe trauma surrounding Gabriel’s death; and this silence was a manifestation of that trauma."
"We are born with a brain half-formed—more like a muddy lump of clay than a divine Olympian."
"Psychotherapy had quite literally saved my life. More important, it had transformed the quality of that life."
"We’re all crazy, I believe, just in different ways."
"Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast."
"Alicia is a silent siren, my boy, luring us to the rocks, where we dash our therapeutic ambition to pieces."
"Mental illness is precisely about a lack of this kind of integration—we end up losing contact with the unacceptable parts of ourselves."
"Murderous rage, homicidal rage, is not born in the present. It originates in the land before memory, in the world of early childhood, with abuse and mistreatment, which builds up a charge over the years, until it explodes—often at the wrong target."
"Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways."
"So this is it, I remember thinking. This is love."
"I’m not sure Jesus was anguished. I don’t see him like that."
"A little bit of sugar is a great mood enhancer."
"Therapy isn’t just about talking. It’s about providing a safe space—a containing environment."
"I want to help you, Alicia. I need you to believe that."
"Like sex, clearly more fuss was made over marijuana than it merited. Then—a minute or so later—something happened. Something incredible. It was like being drenched in an enormous wave of well-being. I felt safe, relaxed, totally at ease, silly and unself-conscious."
"But marijuana was doing something much more than soothing me: crucially, it altered the way I experienced my emotions; it cradled me and held me safe like a well-loved child."
"Our ability to contain ourselves directly depends on our mother’s ability to contain us—if she had never experienced containment by her own mother, how could she teach us what she did not know?"
"Real love is very quiet, very still. It’s boring, if seen from the perspective of high drama. Love is deep and calm—and constant."
"It might last a little while perhaps, but in a few months something else will happen and you’ll end up back here on this couch. Be honest with yourself, Theo—about Kathy and this situation—and everything built on lies and untruths will fall away from you."
"Remember, love that doesn’t include honesty doesn’t deserve to be called love."
"I hated seeing him so upset, looking at me with hurt eyes. I hate causing him pain—and yet sometimes I desperately want to hurt him, and I don’t know why."
"Sometimes I wish I could disappear—like tonight. Gabriel has invited his brother over for dinner. He sprung it on me this morning."
"I’m writing this in Café de l’Artista. I come here most days now. I keep feeling the need to get out of the house. When I’m around other people, even if it’s only the bored waitress in here, I feel connected to the world somehow, like a human being."
"I can’t believe Max is Gabriel’s brother. He has none of Gabriel’s fine qualities, none of his decency, none of his kindness. Max disgusts me—and I said so."
"I feel better for having written this down. I feel safer, somehow, having it on paper. It means I have some evidence—some proof. If it ever comes to that."
"It’s strange—it’s older than I ever saw myself as being; my imagination only ever extended this far."
"I’ve outlived my mother now—it’s an unsteady feeling, being older than she was."
"But something goes wrong, depending on the circumstances into which we are born."
"A baby cannot hate the mother, without the mother first hating the baby."
"The truth. Remember Bion: ‘No memory—no desire.’ No agenda—as a therapist, your only goal is to be present and receptive to your feelings as you sit with her."
"Are you sure you can’t tell me about it now?"
"A man never abandons a woman like that. Not if he loves her."
"I’m not talking about art therapy. I’m talking about Alicia working on her own terms—alone, with her own space to create."
"If you can persuade Rowena, go ahead. I can tell you now—she won’t like the idea. She won’t like it one bit."
"Because Alicia’s the least responsive, most uncommunicative bitch I’ve ever worked with."
"Anyone can paint like that. It’s not difficult to represent something photo-realistically—what’s harder is to have a point of view about it."
"I happened to pass your old gallery the other day when I was in Soho."
"It’s a great way to literally get their unconscious onto the page, where it can be thought about and talked about."
"I don’t give a shit about that. I’ve got my own evidence."
"I won’t fall for it. I won’t give it another thought."
"Best not to say anything to him at all and risk upsetting him again. I don’t want to bother him."
"I need you to do this for me. You need to meet me halfway."
"You think I’m fucking crazy but I’m not crazy! I’m not, I’m not, I’m not!"
"The aim of therapy is not to correct the past, but to enable the patient to confront his own history, and to grieve over it."
"The truth is I understand you better than you think."
"Now you keep going. Keep working with Alicia."
"All the difference—it made ... all the difference."
"I wasn't sure I believe that. I think there was too much to say."
"I was getting ready ... ready to fight. Ready to—kill him."
"We were crashing through every last boundary between therapist and patient."
"She was a force to be reckoned with, Alicia Berenson."
"I felt a little scared of her myself; not scared, exactly—but alert, apprehensive."
"Let's keep going. I've waited long enough to say this. I want to get it over with."
"I hold you responsible. My poor Alicia, my girl ... my poor Alicia ... You’ll pay for this! You hear me?"
"There is nothing so pitiful as seeing all someone's possessions in a cardboard box."
"I had no idea about Alicia’s history of instability. Had I known, I never would have pushed things so far."
"Silencing Alicia wasn’t so easy. Injecting her with morphine was the hardest thing I’ve ever done."
"That’s the terrible irony: I did all this to keep Kathy—and I’ve lost her anyway."
"I needed a drink. I went into the kitchen and poured myself a shot of vodka from the freezer. It burned my throat as I swallowed it. I poured another."
"I wondered what Ruth would say if I went to find her again—as I did six years ago—and confessed all this to her?"
"Finally, they had opened—it had started to snow—snowflakes were falling outside. I opened the window and reached out my hand. I caught a snowflake. I watched it disappear, vanish from my fingertip."