The trouble with most therapy is that it helps you feel better. But you don't get better. You have to back it up with action, action, action.

My rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) was one of the very few therapies that was originated partly or largely because I wanted to be brief and efficient. And therefore right from the start I was active and directive. I tried to show people some central masturbatory core to their philosophy and to get them to work at changing it cognitively, emotionally and behaviorally.

The great majority of the things we now make ourselves panicked about are self-created 'dangers' that exist almost entirely in our own imaginations.

We teach people that they upset themselves. We can't change the past, so we change how people are thinking, feeling and behaving today.

There's no evidence whatsoever that men are more rational than women or that men are more willing to surrender their irrational beliefs. Both sexes seem to be equally irrational.

I would have liked having children to some degree, but frankly I haven't got the time to take the kids to the goddamn ballgame.

People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness.