I walk into a health club locker room and feel an immediate impulse toward scrutiny, the kneejerk measuring of self against other: 'That one has great thighs, this one's gained weight, who's thin, who's fat, how do I compare?' — Caroline Knapp Copy Share Image
The freedom to choose...means the freedom to make mistakes, to falter and fail, to come face-to-face with your own flaws and limitations and fears and secrets, to live with the terrible uncertainty that necessarily attends the construction of a self. — Caroline Knapp Copy Share Image
I'm 38 and I'm single, and I'm having my most intense and gratifying relationship with a dog. But we all learn about love in… — Caroline Knapp Copy Share Image
The kinds of roles dogs fill can be hard to come by in human relationships. We touch the dog or the pet at whim.… — Caroline Knapp Copy Share Image
It happened this way: I fell in love and then, because the love was ruining everything I cared about, I had to fall out. — Caroline Knapp Copy Share Image
Was he smart enough? Introspective enough? Was it just enough to love him, or should I attach myself to someone who seemed farther ahead… — Caroline Knapp Copy Share Image
Who has the best features? This was a little game, conducted several times and always with the same results, in seventh grade, the time… — Caroline Knapp Copy Share Image
“Life had this unmoored quality, full of voids and barely acknowledged yearnings, and if I'd made a list of things I wanted desperately at… — Caroline Knapp Copy Share Image
The hard things in life, the things you really learn from, happen with a clear mind. — Caroline Knapp Copy Share Image
When you're starving or wrapped up in a cycle of binge-ing-and-purging, or sexually obsessed with (someone), it is very hard to think about anything… — Caroline Knapp Copy Share Image
The clothes are different: pre-dog, I used to be very finicky and self-conscious about how I looked; now I schlep around in the worst… — Caroline Knapp Copy Share Image
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… — Caroline Knapp Copy Share Image
Anorexia is a response to cultural images of the female body - waiflike, angular - that both capitulates to the ideal and also mocks… — Caroline Knapp Copy Share Image
