Top 250 Alex Michaelides Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “It’s been here the whole time – my past, I mean – and the reason it’s catching up with me is because it never went anywhere.”

— Alex Michaelides

102. “Remember, love that doesn’t include honesty doesn’t deserve to be called love.” I sighed, deflated, depressed, and tired.”

— Alex Michaelides

103. “Once you kill another human being, there’s no going back.”

— Alex Michaelides

104. “So this was it. This was how it was going to end. Alicia was silent again, and this time her silence would last forever.”

— Alex Michaelides

105. “It was an odd feeling, a bit like recognizing someone – someone she had once known intimately, and couldn’t quite place where or when they had lost touch. The young man ignored the jeering calls of his friends. And with a curious, widening smile, he made his way over to her. “Hello,” he said. “I’m Sebastian.” And that was it. “It was written” is the Greek expression. Meaning, quite simply, from that moment on, their destinies were sealed.”

— Alex Michaelides

106. “Well, I’d rather be lonely than be with the wrong person.”

— Alex Michaelides

107. “What better way for me to prove that my father was correct – that I’m worthless and unlovable – than by pursuing someone who will never love me?”

— Alex Michaelides

108. “After all, everyone’s entitled to be the hero of their own story. So I must be permitted to be the hero of mine. Even though I’m not. I’m the villain.”

— Alex Michaelides

109. “As a therapist, she knew a baby’s first sense of self comes through its parents’ gaze. We are born being watched – our parents’ expressions, what we see reflected in the mirror of their eyes, determines how we see ourselves.”

— Alex Michaelides

110. “You’ve come too far and worked too hard to return to a life of dishonesty and denial and emotional abuse.”

— Alex Michaelides

111. “Snow is a very powerful imaginative symbol, don’t you think? Wipes everything clean.”

— Alex Michaelides

112. “Remember, babyhood is not a time of bliss; it’s one of terror. As babies we are trapped in a strange, alien world, unable to see properly, constantly surprised at our bodies, alarmed by hunger and wind and bowel movements, overwhelmed by our feelings. We are quite literally under attack. We need our mother to soothe our distress and make sense of our experience. As she does so, we slowly learn how to manage our physical and emotional states on our own.”

— Alex Michaelides

113. “Love that doesn’t include honesty doesn’t deserve.”

— Alex Michaelides

114. “But our ability to contain ourselves directly depends on our mother’s ability to contain us – if she had never experienced containment by her own mother, how could she teach us what she did not know? Someone who has never learned to contain himself is plagued by anxious feelings for the rest of his life, feelings that Bion aptly titled nameless dread.”

— Alex Michaelides

115. “Surely now was the time to begin faking that recovery? To utter a few words here and there, then a few more; to slowly communicate some kind of remorse? But no. Week followed week, month followed month, then the years passed – and still Alicia didn’t speak.”

— Alex Michaelides

116. “But one day, all the hurt and anger would burst forth, like fire from a dragon’s belly – and you’d pick up a gun.”

— Alex Michaelides

117. “But if I’m really paying attention, really aware, I sometimes hear a whispering voice pointing me in the right direction. And if I give in to it, as an act of faith, it leads me somewhere unexpected, not where I intended, but somewhere intensely alive, glorious – and the result is independent.”

— Alex Michaelides

118. “There is no such thing as a baby.”

— Alex Michaelides

119. “Perhaps. But let us not forget that while Alicia Berenson may be a murderer, she was also an artist. It makes perfect sense – to me at least – that she should pick up her brushes and paints and express her complicated emotions on canvas. No wonder that, for once, painting came to her with such ease; if grief can be called easy. The painting was a self-portrait. She titled it in the bottom left-hand corner of the canvas, in light blue Greek lettering. One word: Alcestis.”

— Alex Michaelides

120. “Mariana no longer saw the world in color. Life was muted and gray and far away, behind a veil – behind a mist of sadness.”

— Alex Michaelides

121. “We like to think of ourselves as emerging from this primordial fog with our characters fully formed, like Aphrodite rising perfect from the sea foam.”

— Alex Michaelides

122. “Until death do us part.”

— Alex Michaelides

123. “It’s a terrible feeling, the pain of not being loved.”

— Alex Michaelides

124. “Ruth always said that forgiveness could not be coerced – it was experienced spontaneously, as an act of grace, appearing only when a person was ready.”

— Alex Michaelides

125. “Without wishing to sound boastful, I felt uniquely qualified to help Alicia Berenson. I’m a forensic psychotherapist and used to working with some of the most damaged, vulnerable members of society. And something about Alicia’s story resonated with me personally – I felt a profound empathy with her right from the start. Unfortunately, I was still working at Broadmoor in those days, and so treating Alicia would have – should have – remained an idle fantasy, had not fate unexpectedly intervened.”

— Alex Michaelides

126. “It doesn’t take much to save a childhood.” A little kindness, some understanding or validation: someone to recognize and acknowledge a child’s reality – and save his sanity.”

— Alex Michaelides

127. “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

128. “I also learned, from a young age, that I did not walk on the ground – but on a narrow network of invisible ropes, suspended above the earth. I had to navigate them carefully, trying not to slip or fall. Certain aspects of my personality were offensive, it seemed. I had terrible secrets to hide – even I didn’t know what they were. My.”

— Alex Michaelides

129. “I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it when I sorrow most; ‘Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.”

— Alex Michaelides

130. “Boundaries, by definition, are the first thing to go when a child is abused.”

— Alex Michaelides

131. “I felt such humility and gratitude for every second we spent together. I was aware how lucky, how incredibly fortunate I was to have such love, how rare it was, and how others weren’t so lucky.”

— Alex Michaelides

132. “I think her behavior suggests she is quite damaged – lacking in empathy and integrity and just plain kindness – all the qualities you brim with.”

— Alex Michaelides

133. “My argument with so much of psychoanalysis is the preconception that suffering is a mistake, or a sign of weakness, or a sign even of illness. When in fact, possibly the greatest truths we know have come out of people’s suffering. – ARTHUR MILLER.”

— Alex Michaelides

134. “Trying to please someone unpredictable, someone emotionally unavailable, uncaring, unkind – trying to keep them happy, win their love – is this not an old story, Theo? A familiar story?”

— Alex Michaelides

135. “One can’t help but wonder what their relationship will be like in the future, Alcestis and Admetus. Trust, once lost, is hard to recover.”

— Alex Michaelides

136. “She sometimes felt she had been cursed, as if by some malevolent goddess in a Greek myth, to lose everyone she ever loved.”

— Alex Michaelides

137. “Alcestis. Have you read it? By Euripides.” He gave me a curious look. “Read it. Then you’ll understand.”

— Alex Michaelides

138. “Rage, like fear, is reactive in nature.”

— Alex Michaelides

139. “If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.”

— Alex Michaelides

140. “I was a little taken aback, and immediately alert. ‘What do you mean, watching?’ ‘Just what I said. Watching. I told the police, but they didn’t seem interested. They made up their minds the moment they found Alicia with Gabriel’s body and the gun. They didn’t want to listen to any other story.’ ‘What story – exactly?’ ‘I’ll tell you. And you’ll see why I wanted you to come.”

— Alex Michaelides

141. “The person you love most in the world, has condemned you to die, through their own cowardice. That’s quite a betrayal.”

— Alex Michaelides

142. “If looks could kill, I would have dropped dead.”

— Alex Michaelides

143. “A man never abandons a woman like that. Not if he loves her.”

— Alex Michaelides

144. “It was a strange, timeless moment – that first moment they saw each other. Time seemed to slow down, flatten, and stretch. Mariana was transfixed, held in his gaze, unable to look away. It was an odd feeling, a bit like recognizing someone – someone she had once known intimately, and couldn’t quite place where or when they had lost touch.”

— Alex Michaelides

145. “There’s so much pain everywhere, and we just close our eyes to it.”

— Alex Michaelides

146. “No matter how far I ran, I carried him with me wherever I went. I was pursued by an infernal, relentless chorus of furies, all with his voice – shrieking that I was worthless, shameful, a failure.”

— Alex Michaelides

147. “It’s hard to imagine two more different women than Kathy or Alicia. Kathy makes me think of light, warmth, colour and laughter. When I think of Alicia, I think only of depth, of darkness, of sadness. Of silence.”

— Alex Michaelides

148. “The truth is, I have many complicated feelings around going home, and being at the house, with Lydia and Paul. So I avoid going back – and I end up feeling guilty, so I can’t win either way.”

— Alex Michaelides

149. “Debo abrir los ojos y mirar, y ser consciente de la vida tal como ocurre, no solo como yo quiero que sea.”

— Alex Michaelides

150. “The painting was a self-portrait. She titled it in the bottom left-hand corner of the canvas, in light blue Greek lettering. One word: Alcestis.”

— Alex Michaelides