Lucy GrealyWhen I tried to imagine being beautiful, I could only imagine living without the perpetual fear of being alone, without the great burden of isolation, which is what feeling ugly f… ▶373Life
Lucy GrealyThe general plot of life is sometimes shaped by the different ways genuine intelligence combines with equally genuine ignorance.301LifeTime
Lucy GrealyI used to think truth was eternal, that once I knew, once I saw, it would be with me forever, a constant by which everything else could be measured. I know now that this isn’t so,… ▶357ThoughtTruth
Lucy GrealySometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them. ✨ Lucy Grealy (1994). Autobiography … ▶346Time
Lucy GrealyI began a lifelong affair with nostalgia, with only the vaguest notions of what I was nostalgic for. ✨ Lucy Grealy (1994). Autobiography of a Face, p.45, Houghton Mifflin Ha… ▶283Life
Lucy GrealyI used to think that once you really knew a thing, its truth would shine on forever. Now it's pretty obvious to me that more often than not the batteries fade, and sometimes what … ▶339ThoughtTimeTruth
Lucy GrealyI treated despair in terms of hierarchy: if there was a more important pain in the world, it meant my own was negated. I thought I simply had to accept the fact that I was ugly, a… ▶263SadnessThoughtTruth
Lucy GrealyDoes something which exists on the edge have no true relevance to the stable center, or does it, by being on the edge, become a part of the edge and thus a part of the boundary, t… ▶298Truth
Lucy GrealyPartly I was honing my self-consciousness into a torture device, sharp and efficient enough to last me the rest of my life.211Life
Lucy GrealyBeauty, as defined by society at large, seemed to be only about who was best at looking like everyone else.184Humanity
Lucy GrealyPart of the job of being human is to consistently underestimate our effect on other people. ✨ Lucy Grealy (1994). Autobiography of a Face, p.76, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt2410Humanity
Lucy GrealyAnxiety and anticipation, I was to learn, are the essential ingredients in suffering from pain, as opposed to feeling pain pure and simple. ✨ Lucy Grealy (1994). Autobiograp… ▶185DeathSadness
Lucy GrealyI spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I've spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else. It was t… ▶219LifeSadnessTruth
Lucy GrealyThis singularity of meaning--I was my face, I was ugliness--though sometimes unbearable, also offered a possible point of escape. It became the launching pad from which to lift of… ▶142LifePhilosophyTime
Lucy GrealyThrough [my friends] I discovered what it was to love people. There was an art to it...which was not really all that different from the love that is necessary in the making of art… ▶189HumanityLove
Lucy GrealyWhile our bodies move ever forward on the time line, our minds continuously trace backward, seeking shape and meaning as deftly as any arrow seeking its mark ✨ Lucy Grealy (… ▶1510DeathPhilosophyThought
