Andrew Solomon

Writer

1963-10-30

Andrew Solomon is an American writer and lecturer focused on psychology, culture, and politics. He was born on 1963-10-30. He is known for books including The Noonday Demon and Far from the Tree.

Books by Andrew Solomon

The Noonday Demon
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Far From the Tree
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A stone boat
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Quotes by Andrew Solomon

John [the father] kept saying, You have a penis. That means you're a boy. One day, Shannon noticed that her son had been in the bathroom an awfully long time and pushed the door open. He had a pair of my best, sharpest sewing scissors poised, ready to cut. Penis in the scissors. I said, 'What are you doing?' He said, 'This doesn't belong here. So I'm going to cut it off.' I said, 'You can't do that.' He said, 'Why not?' I said, 'Because if you ever want to have girl parts, they need that to make them.' I pulled that one right out of my ass. He handed me the scissors and said, 'Okay.
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I met people on college campuses who were defining themselves as genderqueer to express revolutionary feelings, or to communicate their individuality; they were gender fluid without being gender dysphoric. This phenomenon may be culturally significant, but it has only a little bit in common with the people who feel they can have no authentic self in their birth gender.
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There is no such thing as reproduction, only acts of production.
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Love is circumstantial we can love anyone if need be and losing the one we love is the singular catastrophe. Time does not heal it. Every present moment yearns for even the roughest past.
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While people argue with one another about the specifics of Freud's work and blame him for the prejudices of his time, they overlook the fundamental truth of his writing, his grand humility: that we frequently do not know our own motivations in life and are prisoners to what we cannot understand. We can recognize only a small fragment of our own, and an even smaller fragment of anyone else's, impetus.
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Antonin Artaud wrote on one of his drawings, Never real and always true, and that is how depression feels. You know that it is not real, that you are someone else, and yet you know that it is absolutely true.
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I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good.
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Depression is the flaw in love. To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that despair.
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It is important not to suppress your feelings altogether when you are depressed. It is equally important to avoid terrible arguments or expressions of outrage. You should steer clear of emotionally damaging behavior. People forgive, but it is best not to stir things up to the point at which forgiveness is required. When you are depressed, you need the love of other people, and yet depression fosters actions that destroy that love. Depressed people often stick pins into their own life rafts. The conscious mind can intervene. One is not helpless.
Read quote
Depression is the flaw in love. To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that despair.
Read quote
While people argue with one another about the specifics of Freud's work and blame him for the prejudices of his time, they overlook the fundamental truth of his writing, his grand humility: that we frequently do not know our own motivations in life and are prisoners to what we cannot understand. We can recognize only a small fragment of our own, and an even smaller fragment of anyone else's, impetus.
Read quote
There is no such thing as reproduction, only acts of production.
Read quote
John [the father] kept saying, You have a penis. That means you're a boy. One day, Shannon noticed that her son had been in the bathroom an awfully long time and pushed the door open. He had a pair of my best, sharpest sewing scissors poised, ready to cut. Penis in the scissors. I said, 'What are you doing?' He said, 'This doesn't belong here. So I'm going to cut it off.' I said, 'You can't do that.' He said, 'Why not?' I said, 'Because if you ever want to have girl parts, they need that to make them.' I pulled that one right out of my ass. He handed me the scissors and said, 'Okay.
Read quote
Love is circumstantial we can love anyone if need be and losing the one we love is the singular catastrophe. Time does not heal it. Every present moment yearns for even the roughest past.
Read quote
I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good.
Read quote
I met people on college campuses who were defining themselves as genderqueer to express revolutionary feelings, or to communicate their individuality; they were gender fluid without being gender dysphoric. This phenomenon may be culturally significant, but it has only a little bit in common with the people who feel they can have no authentic self in their birth gender.
Read quote
It is important not to suppress your feelings altogether when you are depressed. It is equally important to avoid terrible arguments or expressions of outrage. You should steer clear of emotionally damaging behavior. People forgive, but it is best not to stir things up to the point at which forgiveness is required. When you are depressed, you need the love of other people, and yet depression fosters actions that destroy that love. Depressed people often stick pins into their own life rafts. The conscious mind can intervene. One is not helpless.
Read quote
Antonin Artaud wrote on one of his drawings, Never real and always true, and that is how depression feels. You know that it is not real, that you are someone else, and yet you know that it is absolutely true.
Read quote
I think that people are most comfortable when the world is orderly. I think there's the sense that when you begin questioning basic distinctions, such as the distinction between being male and being female, it represents a threat to the social order.
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Nowadays, people often ask me when I came out, generalising from the experience of many young people who announce themselves to the world on a particular afternoon. But I did not divorce my reticence in a single sharp break. Rather, I seeped out like a spreading wine stain.
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