Enemy Quote by Vivian Gornick

Research is the live heart of the scientific life ... Greatness of position, respect for past accomplishments, the Nobel Prize itself -- none of…

— Vivian Gornick

“Suddenly, literature, politics, and analysis came together, and I began to think more inclusively about the emotional imprisonment of mind and spirit to which…

— Vivian Gornick

When I work I feel more alive than under any other circumstances. There's not an 'I love you' in the world that can match…

— Vivian Gornick

“All I had to do was get old enough and New York would be mine.”

— Vivian Gornick

“And I—the girl growing in their midst, being made in their image—I absorbed them as I would chloroform on a cloth laid against my…

— Vivian Gornick

Before I knew that I was Jewish or a girl I knew that I was a member of the working class. At a time…

— Vivian Gornick

When the whole world is writing letters, it's easy to lap into the quiet within, tell the story of an hour, keep alive the…

— Vivian Gornick

“The live, warm presence of my mother had disappeared. In its place stood this remoteness posing as Mama. Her anxiety was unbearable to me.…

— Vivian Gornick

What you feel when you're writing is the relief of thinking: if you write the sentence correctly, you're clarifying. If you write the right…

— Vivian Gornick

No man worth his salt does not wish to be a husband and father; yet no man is raised to be a husband and…

— Vivian Gornick

Psychoanalysis showed me that I might be neurotic because I was a girl but, as Chekhov might have put it, I alone had to…

— Vivian Gornick

“I had an affair with a downtown playwright. Two things about this man: He was an ex-alcoholic, and he was phobic about leaving the…

— Vivian Gornick