Quotes by Lucy Grealy

About Lucy Grealy:

Lucinda Margaret Grealy was an American poet and memoirist who wrote Autobiography of a Face in 1994. This critically acclaimed book describes her childhood and early adolescence experience with cancer of the jaw, which left her with some facial disfigurement. In a 1994 interview with Charlie Rose conducted right before she rose to the height of her fame, Lucy states that she considers her book to be primarily about the issue of "identity".
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

When I tried to imagine being beautiful, I could only imagine living without the perpetual fear of being alone, without the great burden of isolation, which is what feeling ugly felt like.

Lucy Grealy

None of us understood that the body is a connected thing.

Lucy Grealy

This singularity of meaning--I was my face, I was ugliness--though sometimes unbearable, also offered a possible point of escape. It became the launching pad from which to lift off, the one immediately recognizable place to point to when asked what w...

Lucy Grealy

Life in general was cruel and offered only different types of voids and chaos. The only way to tolerate it, to have any hope of escaping it, I reasoned, was to know my own strength, to defy life by surviving it.

Lucy Grealy

Does something which exists on the edge have no true relevance to the stable center, or does it, by being on the edge, become a part of the edge and thus a part of the boundary, the definition which gives the whole its shape?

Lucy Grealy

I used to think that once you really knew a thing, its truth would shine on forever. Now it's pretty obvious to me that more often than not the batteries fade, and sometimes what you knew even goes out with a bang when you try and call on it, just li...

Lucy Grealy

Author Bio

  • NameLucy Grealy
  • Descriptionpoet, memoirist
  • AliasesLucinda Margaret Grealy
  • BornJune 3, 1963
  • DiedDecember 18, 2002
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Autobiographer