A Quote by Louise Bourgeois
When my mother died, I fell apart. My father wanted to control me. As a consequence, I ran away to America.
Related Quotes
My mother Molly had a nervous breakdown after my father Chic died, aged 50. He was a very generous man who ran a shop in Dundee giving a lot of people tick. When he died, a lot of people hadn't paid their bills, so he died with a lot of debt. After he died, my mother went doolally.
I ran away from home. I ran away from St. Louis, and then I ran away from the United States of America, because of that terror of discrimination, that horrible beast which paralyzes one's very soul and body.
My father died at 42, of a heart attack. My mother was 32 then. She never wanted to be a victim. And that really resonated as a nine-year-old child. And one of the most revealing things was, very soon after my father died - he was in real estate and he owned some modest buildings - they came to my mother, the men that worked for him, and they said, "You don't have to worry. We will run the business and we will take care of you." And my mother said, "No, you won't. You will teach me how to run the business and I will take care of it and my children."
The whiskey died away in time and was renewed and died again, but the street ran on. From that night the thousand streets ran as one street, with imperceptible corners and changes of scene.
I was one of six children, brought up by my mother in Swindon after my father died. We had all we needed - food on the table, clothes to wear. When I wanted a drum kit, my mother got me one. When I got into playing guitar, I came down one Christmas or birthday and there was a guitar for me. It amazes me how Mum managed to do it.
My mother left behind three daughters when she went to America and started a new life. I certainly felt abandoned when my father died of a brain tumour; I felt he had abandoned me to this terrible, volatile mother and I had no protection.
My father died five days before I returned to New York. He was only fifty-three years old. My parents and my father's doctor had all decided it was wiser for me to go to South America than to stay home and see Papa waste away. For a long time, I felt an enormous sense of guilt about having left my father's side when he was so sick.
I had really wanted adventure. At the time that I ran away, lots of kids ran away from home. It was something of a social phenomenon.
After my father passed away in 1989, I fell pretty hard for theater as an undergraduate at the University of Oregon. Before he died, he planted the seed that maybe I should look into performing.
There were times when close people... Some of my closest friends have left me. People hurt me, so everything fell apart. I didn't feel like I had anyone on my side or anyone who could understand me. So that's why I completely fell apart.
Who ran to help me when I fell, And would some pretty story tell, Or kiss the place to make it well? My mother.
[After her 18-day disappearance in 1974:] I love my husband very, very much, but he didn't ask me when he ran for mayor and he didn't consult me about running for governor. It would be nice to be asked. ... You know, I've been my mother's daughter, my father's daughter, the wife of my husband, the mother of my six children, and grandmother to my eleven grandchildren, but I have never been me. But I am now because I went away. I am a changed woman.
In June 1968, five days before my mother's forty -sixth birthday, the world fell apart again. Sirhan Sirhan shot Bobby Kennedy, who died the next day. Why were people shooting all the Kennedys? Had the country gone mad?
I had wanted to be a novelist for so long, but I didn't have a story. That story came from the death of my father, and wrestling with how to help my mother. Writing it allowed me to work through my fears, frustrations and desires. I wanted control over the situation. And I wasn't sure I would have any in real life.
My mother liked to command me to do things I found scary. I always wanted to stay home and read. My mother only ever wanted me to get away.
In 1999 my father died and my mother was coming to live with me. So I left my Kennington flat and bought a house with a garden because my mother loved watching the birds.
Related Authors
Ai Weiwei Quotes
Chinese
Artist
Andy Warhol Quotes
American
Artist
Claude Monet Quotes
French
Artist
David Hockney Quotes
English
Artist
Gerhard Richter Quotes
German
Artist
Henri Matisse Quotes
French
Artist
Kehinde Wiley Quotes
American
Artist
Leonardo da Vinci Quotes
Italian
Artist
Marcel Duchamp Quotes
French
Artist
Marina Abramovic Quotes
Serbian
Artist
Maurice Sendak Quotes
American
Artist
Michelangelo Quotes
Italian
Artist
Paul Cezanne Quotes
French
Artist
Robert Genn Quotes
Canadian
Artist
Robert Henri Quotes
American
Artist
Yoko Ono Quotes
American
Artist