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  • Writer's pictureGail Buckley

I need to feel strongly, to love and to admire, just as desperately as I need to breathe


“I need to feel strongly, to love and to admire, just as desperately as I need to breathe. A letter from a friend, a Balthus painting on a postcard, a page of Saint-Simon, give meaning to the passing hours."


"But to keep my mind sharp, to avoid descending into resigned indifference, I maintain a level of resentment and anger, neither too much nor to little, just as a pressure cooker has a a safety valve to keep it from exploding.” - Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

“I need to feel strongly, to love and to admire, just as desperately as I need to breathe. A letter from a friend, a Balthus painting on a postcard, a page of Saint-Simon, give meaning to the passing hours." But to keep my mind sharp, to avoid descending into resigned indifference, I maintain a level of resentment and anger, neither too much nor to little, just as a pressure cooker has a a safety valve to keep it from exploding.” - Jean-Dominique Bauby


Jean-Dominique Bauby quote from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Bauby was a French journalist, author and editor who suffered a massive stroke in 1995 that left him with locked-in syndrome - a rare neurological condition that left his mind clear and alert but his body completely paralyzed. He could not move a muscle except for his left eyelid.

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