Home > Author > Patricia Morrisroe
1 " Right now, our model is the culture of exhaustion. We need to be exhausted before we can fall asleep, so we keep pushing and pushing ourselves. But if a society can't rest, how can it sleep? "
― Patricia Morrisroe , Wide Awake: A Memoir of Insomnia
2 " while happiness is something more personal, something a little more selfish perhaps. "
― Patricia Morrisroe , The Woman in the Moonlight
3 " Joy connects us to something larger than ourselves,” Beethoven explained, “while happiness is something more personal, something a little more selfish perhaps. "
4 " One day I will. "
5 " Musical connoisseurship was a vital part of pleasing the opposite sex, and the pianoforte was one of the few instruments appropriate for ladies. Strings required too many quick, powerful movements, giving the impression that the female player might suffer from a choleric temperament. The violoncello sat between a woman’s legs, arousing male listeners in ways not in keeping with music’s higher purpose. The pianoforte had elegant lines and a keyboard that emphasized a woman’s graceful fingers and dainty wrists. Many a marriage proposal followed a recital, as long as the music was pleasing to the ear and didn’t rattle the gentleman’s composure. "
6 " People found it haunting, enthralling, enchanting. Perhaps that’s why it eventually became known as the "
7 " He was hungry for the warmth of another human being, and I was hungry for his warmth. And in different ways, we were both hungry for our mothers, he for the pleasant memories that were either true or a trick of his imagination, I for the memories that were best forgotten but ultimately forgiven. We were all flawed. I’d never met anyone who made me understand and accept that better than Beethoven. "
8 " Above all, he was posing the question that has vexed philosophers for centuries: Knowing that we are going to die, how are we to live? "
