Quote of the Day

If (author Marcel Proust) had ever been able to address to his mother the words that he puts into the mouth of his hero Jean Santeuil, then he would not have developed asthma, he would not have suffered from attacks of suffocating breathlessness, he would not have had to spend half his life in bed, and he would not have died so young.  He puts this quite clearly in the letter to his mother, in which he says that he would rather be ill than run the risk of displeasing her.  Even today, statements of this kind are by no means rare.  What we need to do is to make it clear to ourselves what consequences such emotional blindness entails.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 75-76