Mr. Jamison Quotes & Sayings

I compare myself with my former self, not with others. Not only that, I tend to compare my current self with the best I have been, which is when I have been midly manic. When I am my present "normal" self, I am far removed from when I have been my liveliest, most productive, most intense, most outgoing and effervescent. In sort, for myself, I am a hard act to follow. — Kay Redfield Jamison

Childbirth shapes women as a horizon of anticipation. Women come into consciousness, she speculated, imagining a future pain toward which their bodies inevitably propel them. — Leslie Jamison

The neglect here is almost unimaginable - and it's not just neglect from the Beckley staff but from the world itself - the world that has carried on with its daily business while keeping all these men invisibly deposited elsewhere, in a slew of the nation's most obscure corners. On the outside, you can think about prison for a moment and then you can think about something else. — Leslie Jamison

When people ask what kind of nonfiction I write, I say 'all kinds,' but really I mean I don't write any kind at all: I'm trying to dissolve the borders between memoir and journalism and criticism by weaving them together. — Leslie Jamison

I have had manic-depressive illness, also known as bipolar disorder, since I was 18 years old. It is an illness that ensures that those who have it will experience a frightening, chaotic and emotional ride. It is not a gentle or easy disease. — Kay Redfield Jamison

I've always treasured empathy as the particular privilege of the invisible, the observers who are shy precisely because they sense so much--because it is overwhelming to say even a single word when you're sensitive to every last flicker of nuance in the room. — Leslie Jamison

There is no common standard for education about diagnosis. Distinguishing between bipolar depression and major depressive disorder, for example, can be difficult, and mistakes are common. Misdiagnosis can be lethal. Medications that work well for some forms of depression induce agitation in others. — Kay Redfield Jamison

They used to treat sheep carcasses with Lithium so if the Coyotes went after the herd and bit on the treated carcasses, the got so sick they kept their teeth to themselves. — Kay Redfield Jamison

I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn't work for me, the answer would be a simple no ... and it would be an answer laced with terror. But lithium does work for me, and therefore I can afford to pose the question. Strangely enough, I think I would choose to have it. It's complicated ... — Kay Redfield Jamison

It was as if my father had given me, by way of temperament, an impossibly wild, dark, and unbroken horse. It was a horse without a name, and a horse with no experience of a bit between its teeth. My mother taught me to gentle it; gave me the discipline and love to break it; and- as Alexander had known so intuitively with Bucephalus- she understood, and taught me, that the beast was best handled by turning it toward the sun. — Kay Redfield Jamison

Not one word about proposals, no matter how much she pushes," I told my friends. "No matter what she says or how loud she cries, don't try to throw that up as a distraction."
Gabriel's lips twitched. "I don't think it's going to be that bad. It's one woman against five supernatural creatures ... And Zeb."
"You laugh because you haven't heard my mother's thirty-minute verbal dissertation on appropriate seasonal flower choices. We're better off letting her yell at us for being dirty, premarital fornicators. — Molly Harper

The complexities of what we are given in life are vast and beyond comprehension. — Kay Redfield Jamison

Girl gets; girl gets; girl gets. Not that she is granted things but that things keep happening to her, until they don't - until she starts doing unto others as they have done, hurting everyone who ever hurt her, moving the world with her mind, conducting its objects like an orchestra. — Leslie Jamison

I can't really hear the audience applause when I'm on stage. I'm totally immersed in the piece. But sometimes I get a lot of it and wonder, "Now, why did they applaud here?" If it's a white crowd, they usually applaud because they think it's a pretty movement. If it's a black crowd, it's usually because they identify with the message. — Judith Jamison

So the criminals win, that's what you're saying? For now they do. But it's a long game, Jamison. And I always play for the long game. — David Baldacci

I've been lucky enough to work with extraordinary teachers along the way, and I'm excited to share what I've learned with graduate students at SNHU. I'm just as excited for what I'll learn from them. — Leslie Jamison

I've had a really charmed life, you know. Things always come to me - they just do. — Judith Jamison

Nyla, he breathed, hoping not to wake her but also hoping that she would open her eyes. She didn't. She simply smiled and whispered, "Jamison, I'd like you to be the first to know that I love you." His heart convulsed. She had finally said it. — Mia Castile

But, with time, one has encountered many of the monsters, and one is increasingly less terrified of those still to be met. — Kay Redfield Jamison

The pain is what you make of it. You have to find something in it that yields. I understood my guiding imperative as: keep bleeding, but find some love in the blood. — Leslie Jamison

'An Unquiet Mind' wasn't hard to write in terms of the actual writing of it. — Kay Redfield Jamison

Commonality doesn't inoculate against hurt. — Leslie Jamison

Learning the edges or limits or sources of friction in empathy was one of the big issues for me. — Leslie Jamison

I believe that curiosity, wonder and passion are defining qualities of imaginative minds and great teachers; that restlessness and discontent are vital things; and that intense experience and suffering instruct us in ways that less intense emotions can never do. — Kay Redfield Jamison

I'm very smart when it comes to choosing dancers and trying to show the world that there's a whole lot of dancing going on. — Judith Jamison

Maybe it's a generational thing, but I never wanted to be the best black dancer in the world. I just wanted to be the best. — Judith Jamison

I never again looked at the sky and saw only vastness and beauty. From that afternoon on I saw that death was also and always there. — Kay Redfield Jamison

The disease that has, on several occasions, nearly killed me does kill tens of thousands of people every year: most are young, most die unnecessarily, and many are among the most imaginative and gifted that we as a society have. — Kay Redfield Jamison

Dancing is bigger than the physical body. Think bigger than that. When you extend your arm, it doesn't stop at the end of your fingers, because you're dancing bigger than that. You're dancing spirit. — Judith Jamison

We read to learn about the world.
We write to change the world. — Lori Jamison Rog