Meghan O'Rourke

“Yet the story of Orpheus, it occurs to me, is not just about the desire of the living to resuscitate the dead but about the ways in which the dead drag us along into their shadowy realm because we cannot let them go. So we follow them into the Underworld, descending, descending, until one day we turn and make our way back.”

“Relationships take up energy; letting go of them, psychiatrists theorize, entails mental work. When you lose someone you were close to, you have to reassess your picture of the world and your place in it. The more your identity was wrapped up with the deceased, the more difficult the loss.”

“It's all too easy when talking about female gymnasts to fall into the trap of infantilizing them, spending more time worrying more about female vulnerability than we do celebrating female strength.”

“'Hamlet' is the best description of grief I've read because it dramatizes grief rather than merely describing it.”

“One of the ideas I've clung to most of my life is that if I just try hard enough it will work out.”

“There is always tension in women's gymnastics between athleticism, grace, performance, and eros.”

“Grief is at once a public and a private experience. One's inner, inexpressible disruption cannot be fully realized in one's public persona.”