The Woman Who Thought too Much Quotes

“I find it almost impossible to throw a book away. Anyway, what some call hoarding, others might call building a library. So, I can justify my books. I believe I justify them in a perfectly rational way.”
― Joanne Limburg, The Woman Who Thought too Much

“So my life has come to this:
all I ever make is laundry.

Awake or asleep, I'm always
shuffling round some shopping mall,

raking through knitwear carousels
that whirl into infinity,

searching, with the fever or teething gums,
for the ultimate cardigan.

Is it any wonder the wardrobe's bursting,
the linen basket overflowing

like an archive of disproved hypotheses?
The grey bras, the shrinking T-shirts,

that embarrassed puddle of lycra,
my favourite dress -- now ruined dress --

my lost remembered, perfect dress:
all laundry, in the end. More laundry.”
― Joanne Limburg, The Woman Who Thought too Much

“But in the end I had to acknowledge that, whether I was emotionally challenged or not, there was no avoiding at least some of the responsibility for my own behaviour, not least if I wanted to be the protagonist of my own life, rather than some pitiful apology for a character who never acted unless she was acted upon.”
― Joanne Limburg, The Woman Who Thought too Much: A Memoir

“Sometimes, what starts out as a drug's side effect can end up as its main therapeutic purpose. Iproniazid was originally prescribed to treat tuberculosis; when so many patients taking it grew so cheerful that the effect had to be more coincidental, one of the first effective anti-depressants was born.”
― Joanne Limburg, The Woman Who Thought too Much

“Did I ever smile like this,
beaming my uncritical love?
With such unstable chemistry,
we struggle to assemble love.”
― Joanne Limburg, The Woman Who Thought too Much

“It has long been accepted that a developing brain, a child’s brain, is partly shaped by nurture. Researchers in various fields of neuroscience have found more and more evidence that the brain retains this ‘neuroplasticity’ – the capacity to reshape itself – into adulthood. This is why and how practice makes perfect, this is why and how we develop habits; it also offers us the means of breaking them.”
― Joanne Limburg, The Woman Who Thought too Much