Caroline Knapp quotes - page 2

Mastery over the body - its impulses, its needs, its size - is paramount; to lose control is to risk beauty, and to risk beauty is to risk desirability, and to risk desirability is to risk entitlement to sexuality and love and self-esteem. (Caroline Knapp)
Dogs have such short life spans, it's like a concentrated version of a human life. When they get older, they become much more like our mothers. They wait for us, watch out for us, are completely fascinated by everything we do. View quote
Caroline Knapp
Cats ... are like four-legged poster children for OCD. View quote
Caroline Knapp
Academic achievement was something I'd always sought as a form of reward. Good grades pleased my parents, good grades pleased my teachers; you got them in order to sew up approval. View quote
Caroline Knapp
My recipe for bliss on a Friday night consists of a 'New York Times' crossword puzzle and a new episode of 'Homicide;' Saturdays and Sundays are oriented around walks in the woods with the dog, human companion in tow some of the time but not always. View quote
Caroline Knapp
Solitude is a breeding ground for idiosyncrasy, and I relish that about it, the way it liberates whim. View quote
Caroline Knapp
On the broad spectrum of solitude, I lean toward the extreme end: I work alone, as well as live alone, so I can pass an entire day without uttering so much as a hello to another human being. Sometimes a day's conversation consists of only five words, uttered at the local Starbucks: 'Large coffee with milk, please. View quote
Caroline Knapp
Me, I walk along and feel quietly defensive, a recluse in the Land of We. That's quite the loaded word, 'we. View quote
Caroline Knapp
Passivity is corrosive to the soul; it feeds on feelings of integrity and pride, and it can be as tempting as a drug. View quote
Caroline Knapp
I saw my parents as model grown-ups, and their manner, their silence, informed my sense of what adulthood looked and felt like. Grown-ups behaved rationally and calmly. Grown-ups worked during the day and came home at night and sat down for drinks and passed the evening quietly. View quote
Caroline Knapp
I'm still prone to periods of isolation, still more fearful of the world out there and more averse to pleasure and risk than I'd like to be; I still direct more energy toward controlling and minimizing appetites than toward indulging them. (Caroline Knapp)
I've always been drawn to solitude, felt a kind of luxurious relief in its self-generated pace and rhythms. View quote
Caroline Knapp
A lot of people, quite frankly, think intense attachments to animals are weird and suspect, the domain of people who can't quite handle attachments to humans. View quote
Caroline Knapp
You'll reach into your wallet to brandish a photograph of a new puppy, and a friend will say, 'Oh, no - not pictures.' View quote
Caroline Knapp