“ I put the odds on a psychic deathmatch between Attila the Hun and Virginia Woolf at fifty-fifty. Alison Bechdel
“ Four years after my father's death, when the subject of parents came up in conversation i would relate the information in a flat, matter-of-fact tone eager to detect in my listener the flinch of grief… Alison Bechdel
“ But, Jocelyn, if I really were all those things [good, kind, talented, hard working, open to change, and adorable]... ...I would die.'I wasn't sure what I meant by this, but it suddenly struck me as t… Alison Bechdel
“ Gatsby's self-willed metamorphosis from farm boy to prince is many ways identical to my father's. Like Gatsby, my father fueled this transformation with the colossal vitality of his illusion. Unlike G… Alison Bechdel
“ Don't you kids get any ideas about dragging a trailer into the backyard. after you graduate from high school, i don't want to see you again. Alison Bechdel
“ Your unconscious wants to express the pain you feel about your own lost innocence. But your ego wants to keep it repressed. To the compromise is anxiety. Alison Bechdel
“ At first I was glad for the help. My freshmen English class, Mythology and Archetypal Experience, confounded me. I didn't understand why we couldn't just read books without forcing contorted interpret… Alison Bechdel
“ If it weren't for the unconventionality of my desires, my mind might never have been forced to reckon with my body. Alison Bechdel
“ I suppose that a lifetime spent hiding one's erotic truth could have a cumulative renunciatory effect. Sexual shame is in itself a kind of death. Alison Bechdel
“ I guess I felt like I'd failed her [by throwing up]. She had so many demands on her...The one thing she needed from me was that I not need anything from her [Bechdel's mother]. Alison Bechdel
“ Alice Miller writes that the child who suppresses his own feelings in order to accomodate a parent has been, in a sense, abandoned.'Later, when these feelings of being deserted begin to emerge in the… Alison Bechdel
“ How Horrid has a slightly facetious tone that strikes me as Wildean. It appears to embrace the actual horror--puberty, public disgrace--then at the last second nimbly sidesteps it, laughing. Alison Bechdel
