[of Nan Goldin] In an afterword to Ballad written in 2012, she declared: ‘I decided as a young girl I was going to leave a record of my life and experience that no one could rewrite or deny.

About This Quote

This quote is meant to imply that the writing of Ballad was the only thing that Nan Goldin allowed herself to be written about. She was not happy with her family or with her life, she felt that she was never good enough, and she felt that no one would understand.

Source: The Lonely City: Adventures In The Art Of Being Alone

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More Quotes By Olivia Laing

1. [of Nan Goldin] In an afterword to Ballad written in 2012, she declared: ‘I decided as a young girl I was going to leave a record of my life and experience that no one could rewrite or deny.

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2. Hopper’s paintings are full of women like her; women who appear to be in the grips of a loneliness that has to do with gender and unattainable standards of appearance, and that gets increasingly toxic and strangulating with age.

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3. I saw him freeing me from the silences of the interior life.

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4. That’s the dream of sex, isn’t it? That you will be liberated from the prison of the body by the body itself, at long last desired, its strange tongue understood.

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5. Is sex a cure for loneliness, and if it is, what happens if our body or sexuality is considered deviant or damaged, if we are ill or unblessed with beauty?

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