Big Swiss Quotes

“Yes, people age horribly. They suffer strokes. Their bodies and brains fall apart. But the male ego? Firmly intact until the bitter end.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“I spent a lot of time alone, but I was rarely lonely because I like my own brain.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“It was a voice you could snag your sweater on, or perhaps chip one of your teeth, but it was also sweet enough to suck on, to sleep with in your mouth.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“All I’m saying is that trauma doesn’t get you a lifelong get-out-of-jail-free card. It also doesn’t necessarily confer wisdom, or the right to pontificate,”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“She had trouble being in her body in general, which was why she liked to be roughed up by the elements and was always either sunburned, windblown, or damp from the rain.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“She reminded Greta of one of those exotic vegetables she was drawn to at the farmer's market but didn't know how to cook. Kohlrabi, maybe, or a Jerusalem artichoke. Not very approachable. Not sweet or overly familiar. Not easily boiled down or buttered up.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“I’m direct,” Big Swiss admitted, “because I don’t care if people like me. I distrust people-pleasers. They seem phony to me, and dangerous.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“It's incredible to me that you're still getting mileage out of your mother's suicide. You're still using it as currency, even though it has nothing to do with what you did. In fact, It's kind of psychotic that you're spending that currency on this moment. When will it run out?”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“Yes. I spent a lot of time alone, but I was rarely lonely because I like my own brain.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“The straitjacket explained her passivity, her inability to defend herself, to take action, to make plans, to dream—”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“If everything can be explained by your trauma, then nothing is really your fault, right? You always have this convenient out. Your mother killed herself, and so that gives you permission to do whatever you want?”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“When I pick out pastries at the bakery, it sounds like I’m ordering someone’s execution.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“Sorry is just something you take off a shelf. It means nothing to me.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“Although she was newly single and happier than she'd been in years, a small part of her was still ready to die, and still enjoyed telling lies.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“Why not say that you made a choice, that you knew what you were doing was wrong, and that you did it anyway? Why continue coasting on your trauma? It's not a good look at your age.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“Greta considered her own behavior around red flags. Her habit was not to ignore them so much as to ingest them, a somewhat laborious mental production that involved placing them in a stockpot with butter, herbs, and mirepoix; cooking over low heat without browning; adding red meat, additional red flags, a jug of red wine; and voilà, four hours at a lazy simmer later, an extremely rich red-flag stew that she forked into her mouth every day like a fucking moron, sometimes for years on end.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“It takes an enormous amount of energy—and courage—to free yourself, to follow the path of transformation without abandoning yourself, without fleeing from your pain and all the loss you’ve experienced.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“All I’m saying is that trauma doesn’t get you a lifelong get-out-of-jail-free card. It also doesn’t necessarily confer wisdom, or the right to pontificate”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“It’s gong, honey, not dong,” a”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“Kissing Big Swiss’s teeth was jarring and humiliating, like kissing a bathroom sink. But maybe that was too unkind. It was like kissing a baptismal font full of holy water.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“Her beauty was like Switzerland itself—stunning, but sterile—and her Teutonic stoicism made the people around her seem like emotional libertines or, to use a more psychiatric term, total fucking basket cases.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“I would never call myself a “survivor.” I’m just—I’m not one of these trauma people. OM: What’s a trauma person? FEW: Someone who can’t stop saying the word “trauma.” Trauma people are almost as unbearable to me as Trump people. If you try suggesting that they let go of their suffering, their victimhood, they act retraumatized. It’s like, yes, what happened to you is shitty, I’m not denying that, but why do you keep rolling around in your own shit? If they stopped doing that for two seconds and got over themselves, even a little, they might actually become who they were meant to be. “Whoa,” Greta said. “Hello.” OM: So, suppose someone has been gang-raped at gunpoint and can’t seem to pull themselves together, stop drinking, return to work, or find meaning in their lives, would you tell them to just “get over themselves”? FEW: Well, there is a hierarchy, isn’t there? OM: I don’t think so. FEW: If you didn’t think there was, you wouldn’t have used that example. You would have said, “Suppose someone has been molested by a neighbor” or “neglected by their mother” or “bullied all their lives.” But there is a hierarchy. Trauma people don’t like to hear that. To them, all trauma matters. OM: Where would you place your trauma on the hierarchy? FEW: All I’m saying is that trauma doesn’t get you a lifelong get-out-of-jail-free card. It also doesn’t necessarily confer wisdom, or the right to pontificate, which I realize I’m doing right now. OM: Well. I’m willing to concede that life handles some people more roughly than it does others, and that you do have a choice in how you deal with it. You can decide what you want to do with it, but not until after you address it, which—I’m sorry to say—involves talking about it, for as long as it takes, identifying fears and triggers— FEW: Triggers. God. This is why I’m not crazy about therapy. I really hate the language.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“Anorexics eat ice, Greta thought. They love ice, can’t get enough of it. In fact, they actually crave ice, don’t they? Because it contains iron? “Does ice have iron in it?” Greta asked. “No,” said Sabine. “But a lot of anemics chew ice. I forget why. I think it makes them feel… alive, or alert, or something.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“Your guilt is a straightjacket.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“and at one point she held my hand and asked what I was thinking, and I told her that you had once been a dolphin in the Banana River, that you had saved me from drowning, that it had felt too Disney to ever say out loud but that I wanted her to know me, I wanted to tell her more, to blow it wide open, and I nearly told her my real name, but I was too startled by her face, her faint smile, the way she nodded her head. I could tell she thought I was crazy, or making shit up, and I suppose I don't blame her. I stared at the deep, dark, dolphin-free Hudson, a real river with a swift current, and thought about trying again.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“While Greta gave Nicole her number, she watched Nicole notice Big Swiss. Watching women notice Big Swiss had become one of Greta’s favorite pastimes. Greta likened it to standing in line at a crowded bakery, focusing intensely on the pastries in the display case, feeling pressured to hurry up and decide because the line was so long, absentmindedly ordering from the faceless counterperson, meeting that person at the register, fumbling with your wallet, dealing with the debit card, and then realizing you’re being rung up by Charlize Theron, who’s making deliberate eye contact with you.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“It's gong, honey, not dong”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“She seems profoundly lonely. It's part of my attraction to her.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“Desire,” Greta said. “You may not understand this, but I haven’t felt real desire in years.” “What else are you feeling?” “I’m feeling pretty gay, to be honest,” Greta said.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

“I’ve never told this to anyone, and I’ll probably regret telling you, but when I’m stressed out, Jason Bateman usually comes to my rescue.”
― Jen Beagin, Big Swiss