Tragic heroes are failed pragmatists. Their ends are unrealistic and their means are impractical.

I am always true to myself, that is the problem. Who else could I be true to?

Believing in religion is like believing that adulthood is the solution to childhood.

There is nothing more terrorizing than the possibility that nothing is hidden. There is nothing more scandalous than a happy marriage

The child..will try to make himself..independent of other people. .. Excesses of appetite are self-cures for feelings of hopelessness. ..The child [uses] ‘doubt about food to hide doubt about love.’

Everybody is dealing with how much of their own aliveness they can bear and how much they need to anesthetize themselves.

People change, but there really are limits. One thing you discover in psychoanalytic treatment is the limits of what you can change about yourself or your life. We are children for a very long time.