#absence

For the signifier is a unit in its very uniqueness, being by nature symbol only of an absence. ↗

— Jacques Lacan

#being #nature #only #symbol #uniqueness

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires. ↗

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

#absence #candles #diminishes #extinguishes #fans

Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind. ↗

— Leo Rosten

#advises #another #any #before #contradict

In the absence of a cat, I’d consider cuddling with a synthetic fur coat. Especially if your dead grandma was wearing it.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#cats #coat #cuddle #cuddling #death

Oh, Myr," he chokes out. "I hate having to ask this of you..." He glances towards the car again, and I crouch down in the shadows, hoping it's too dark for him to see whether the window is open or closed. The woman pats his arm, cradling her hand against his elbow. "You know I'd do anything for you and Hil," she says. I like her voice. It's throaty and rich. "You'd do anything?" my father repeats numbly. "Even now? After -?" "Even now," the woman says firmly. ↗

— Margaret Peterson Haddix

#asking #fear #forgiveness #guilt #help

If the portraits of our absent friends are pleasant to us, which renew our memory of them and relieve our regret for their absence by a false and empty consolation, how much more pleasant are letters which bring us the written characters of the absent friend. ↗

— Héloïse d'Argenteuil

#company #consolation #friends #friendship #images

You’re lost in your own world, in the things that happen there, and you’ve locked all the doors. Sometimes I look at you sleeping. I wake up and look at you and I feel closer to you when you’re like that, unguarded, than when you’re awake. When you’re awake you’re like someone with her eyes closed, watching a movie on the inside of your eyelids. I can’t reach you anymore. Once upon a time I could, but not now, and not for a long time. ↗

— Nicole Krauss

#great-house #loneliness #nicole-krauss #movies

Inasmuch as society cannot go on without discipline of some kind, men were constrained, in the absence of any other form of discipline, to turn to discipline of the military type. ↗

— Irving Babbitt

#any #cannot #constrained #discipline #form

When I came back to Dublin I was courtmartialed in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence. ↗

— Brendan Behan

#back #came #could #death #dublin

Total absence of humor renders life impossible. ↗

— Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

#humor #impossible #life #renders #total