The Silent Patient Quotes With Page Numbers
“Once you name something, it stops you seeing the whole of it, or why it matters. You focus on the word, which is just the tiniest part, really, the tip of an iceberg.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Alicia Berenson’s Diary, July 14, Page 1
“I believe the same is true for most people who go into mental health. We are drawn to this profession because we are damaged – we study psychology to heal ourselves. Whether we are prepared to admit this or not is another question.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Theo Faber as the Narrator, Part One, Chapter 3, Page 13
“Somehow grasping at vanishing snowflakes is like grasping at happiness: an act of possession that instantly gives way to nothing. It reminded me that there was a world outside this house: a world of vastness and unimaginable beauty; a world that for now, remained out of my reach. That memory had repeatedly returned to me over the years. It’s as if the misery that surrounded that brief moment of freedom made it burn even brighter: a tiny light surrounded by darkness.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Theo Faber as the Narrator, Part One, Chapter 3, Page 15
“I didn’t want to die. Not yet; not when I hadn’t lived.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Theo Faber as the Narrator, Part One, Chapter 3, Page 16
“At the time I didn’t understand. But that’s how therapy works. A patient delegates his unacceptable feelings to his therapist; and she holds everything he is afraid to feel, and feels it for him. Then, ever so slowly, she feeds his feelings back to him.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Theo Faber as the Narrator, Part One, Chapter 3, Page 17
“We’re all crazy, I believe, just in different ways.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Theo Faber as the Narrator, Part One, Chapter 3, Page 18
“You become increasingly comfortable with madness – and not just the madness of others, but your own. We’re all crazy, I believe, just in different ways.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Theo Faber as the Narrator, Part One, Chapter 3, Page 19
“We are made up of different parts, some good, some bad, and a healthy mind can tolerate this ambivalence and juggle both good and bad at the same time. Mental illness is precisely about a lack of this kind of integration – we end up losing contact with the unacceptable parts of ourselves.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Theo Faber as the Narrator, Part One, Chapter 7, Page 35
“Sometimes it takes courage, you know, and a long time, to be honest.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Yuri, Part One, Chapter 9, Page 42
“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways.
—SIGMUND FREUD”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Part Two, Page 53
“I suppose what scares me is giving in to the unknown.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Alicia Berenson’s Diary, July 17, Part Two,Chapter One, Page 57
“There’s so much pain everywhere, and we just close our eyes to it. The truth is we’re all scared. We’re terrified of each other.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Part Two, Character One: Alicia Berenson’s Diary, July 18, Chapter One, Page 59
“My old therapist used to say intimacy requires the repeated experience of being responded to—and that doesn’t happen overnight.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Theo Faber, Part One, Chapter 7, Page 91
“Choosing a lover is a lot like choosing a therapist. We need to ask ourselves, is this someone who will be honest with me, listen to criticism, admit making mistakes, and not promise the impossible?”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Theo quoting Ruth, Part Two, Chapter 9, Page 100
“…we often mistake love for fireworks – for drama and dysfunction. But real love is very quiet, very still. It’s boring, if seen from the perspective of high drama. Love is deep and calm – and constant.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Theo Faber, Part Two, Chapter 9, Page 101
“About fireworks?
About love. About how we often mistake love for fireworks – for drama and dysfunction. But real love is very quiet, very still. It’s boring, if seen from the perspective of high drama. Love is deep and calm – and constant. I imagine you do give Kathy love – in the true sense of the word. Whether or not she is capable of giving it back to you is another question.”~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Characters: Theo and Ruth, Part Two, Chapter Nine, Page 101
“You know, one of the hardest things to admit is that we weren’t loved when we needed it most. It’s a terrible feeling, the pain of not being loved.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Ruth, Part Two, Chapter 9, Page 101
“Remember, love that doesn’t include honesty doesn’t deserve to be called love.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Ruth, Part Two, Chapter 9, Page 103
“Love that doesn’t include honesty doesn’t deserve to be called love.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Ruth, Part Two, Chapter 9, Page 103
“No one is born evil. As Winnicott put it, “A baby cannot hate the mother, without the mother first hating the baby.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Theo Faber as the Narrator, Part Two, Chapter 15, Page 131
“Well, I’d rather be lonely than be with the wrong person.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Alicia Berenson’s Diary, August 6, PartTwo, Chapter 22, Page 157
“Trust, once lost, is hard to recover.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Diomedes, Part Two, Chapter 23, Page 167
“The aim of therapy is not to correct the past, but to enable the patient to confront his own history, and to grieve over it. —ALICE MILLER”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Part Four, Page 225
“I didn’t kill Gabriel. Gabriel killed me. All I did was pull the trigger.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Alicia Berenson’s Diary, February 23, Part Five, Chapter 1, Page 312
“Perhaps some of us are simply born evil, and despite our best efforts we remain that way.”
~Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient, Character: Theo Faber as the Narrator, Part Five, Chapter 3, Page 320
