# Quote — Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey Into Night

> But I suppose life has made him like that, and he can't help it. None of us can help the things life has done to us. They're done before you realize it, and once they're done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you'd like to be, and you've lost your true self forever.

- Author: [Eugene O'Neill](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eugene-oneill.md)
- Book: [Long Day's Journey Into Night](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eugene-oneill/long-days-journey-into-night.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eugene_O'Neill#Long_Day's_Journey_into_Night_(1955)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/eugene-oneill/long-days-journey-into-night/but-i-suppose

## More from this book

> It wasn't the fog I minded, Cathleen. I really love fog. It hides you from the world and the world from you. You feel that everything has changed, and nothing is what it seemed to be. No one can find or touch you any more. Its the foghorn I hate. It won't let you alone. It keeps reminding you, and warning you, and calling you back.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eugene-oneill/long-days-journey-into-night/it-wasnt-the.md)

> I haven't touched a piano in so many years. I couldn't play with such crippled fingers, even if I wanted to. For a time after my marriage I tried to keep up my music. But it was hopeless. One-night stands, cheap hotels, dirty trains, leaving children, never having a home — [She stares at her hands with fascinated disgust.] See, Cathleen, how ugly they are! So maimed and crippled! You would think they'd been through some horrible accident! [She gives a strange little laugh.] So they have, come to think of it. [She suddenly thrusts her hands behind her back.] I won't look at them. They're worse than the foghorn for reminding me — [Then with defiant self-assurance.] But even they can't touch me now. [She brings her hands from behind her back and deliberately stares at them — calmly.] They're far away. I see them, but the pain has gone.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eugene-oneill/long-days-journey-into-night/i-havent-touched.md)

> It kills the pain. You go back until at last you are beyond its reach. Only the past when you were happy is real.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eugene-oneill/long-days-journey-into-night/it-kills-the.md)