AtomicQuote

Peter Straub Quote

It is as though some old part of yourself wakes up in you, terrified, useless in the life you have, its skills and habits destructive but intact, and what is left of the present you, the person you have become, wilts and shrivels in sadness or despair: the person you have become is only a thin shell over this other, more electric and endangered self. The strongest, the least digested parts of your experience can rise up and put you back where you were when they occurred; all the rest of you stands back and weeps.

Peter Straub

It is as though some old part of yourself wakes up in you, terrified, useless in the life you have, its skills and habits destructive but intact, and what is left of the present you, the person you have become, wilts and shrivels in sadness or despair: the person you have become is only a thin shell over this other, more electric and endangered self. The strongest, the least digested parts of your experience can rise up and put you back where you were when they occurred; all the rest of you stands back and weeps.

Tags: flashbacks, post traumatic stress disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, ptsd, terror

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About Peter Straub

Peter Francis Straub (; March 2, 1943 – September 4, 2022) was an American novelist and poet. He had success with several horror and supernatural fiction novels, among them Julia (1975), Ghost Story (1979) and The Talisman (1984), the latter co-written with Stephen King. He explored the mystery genre with the Blue Rose trilogy, consisting of Koko (1988), Mystery (1990) and The Throat (1993). He fused the supernatural with crime fiction in Lost Boy, Lost Girl (2003) and the related In the Night Room (2004). For the Library of America, he edited the volume H. P. Lovecraft: Tales and the anthology American Fantastic Tales. Straub received such literary honors as the Bram Stoker Award, World Fantasy Award, and International Horror Guild Award.
According to his New York Times obituary, Straub "brought a poet's sensibility to stories about ghosts, demons and other things that go bump in the night."