absensa

identity

occupation / innovator as

journalist

nationality

American

president

novelist

clinical psychologist

scientific organization

PEN America

is able to give the heart time to integrate what it has not previously absorbed. There is sometimes as much intimacy in the span of continents as in the shared hours before dawn.

Absence does not so much make the heart grow fonder as give the heart time to integrate what it has not previously absorbed, time to make sense of what happened too quickly to have any meaning in the instant. This is always true. If it is in absence that people forget each other, it is also in the quiet pause of absence that, minds running in symmetry, people come to know each other; there is sometimes as much intimacy in the span of continents as in the shared hours before dawn.

is not a smug label or a gold medal but a revolution.

Identity itself should be not a smug label or a gold medal but a revolution.

is not sought in the painful experiences, but we seek our identities in the wake of painful experiences. We cannot bear a pointless torment, but we can endure great pain if we believe that it's purposeful.

We don't seek the painful experiences that hew our identities, but we seek our identities in the wake of painful experiences. We cannot bear a pointless torment, but we can endure great pain if we believe that it's purposeful. Ease makes less of an impression on us than struggle. We could have been ourselves without our delights, but not without the misfortunes that drive our search for meaning. 'Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities,' St. Paul wrote in Second Corinthians, 'for when I am weak, then I am strong.'

Andrew Solomon

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Andrew Solomon