Home > Author > Catherine Lacey >

" What a person should remember at times like these, when all normalcy seems to have left you, is that all things begin and end in the mind. Anything can be in there and anything can be taken out—anything, any single thing, by which I mean everything can be taken out and whatever remains is what you are, not the sensations you feel, the food you eat, not the people you seem to know or the objects you own or the people you seem to own or the objects that have known you all your life. You’re not even the memories you can remember or even the thoughts you can think. You are something below all those things. You are the little dog at the bottom of the pile; no, not even the dog but the smallest flea on the smallest dog at the bottom of the pile. Even less than that, even less and still somehow more than anything else—that’s what you are. And when you can remember this everything becomes very still and you can move around easily, as if it were all a dream. "

Catherine Lacey , Certain American States: Stories


Image for Quotes

Catherine Lacey quote : What a person should remember at times like these, when all normalcy seems to have left you, is that all things begin and end in the mind. Anything can be in there and anything can be taken out—anything, any single thing, by which I mean everything can be taken out and whatever remains is what you are, not the sensations you feel, the food you eat, not the people you seem to know or the objects you own or the people you seem to own or the objects that have known you all your life. You’re not even the memories you can remember or even the thoughts you can think. You are something below all those things. You are the little dog at the bottom of the pile; no, not even the dog but the smallest flea on the smallest dog at the bottom of the pile. Even less than that, even less and still somehow more than anything else—that’s what you are. And when you can remember this everything becomes very still and you can move around easily, as if it were all a dream.