It is easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling than to feel yourself into a new way of acting.

[O]ne of the greatest difficulties encountered in bringing about favorable change is this almost inescapable illusion that there is a perduring, unique, simple existent self, [which is] in some strange fashion, the patient's, or the subject person's, private property.

We are all much more simply human than otherwise, be we happy and successful, contented and detached, miserable and mentally disordered, or whatever.

There is no fun in psychiatry. If you try to get fun out of it, you pay a considerable price for your unjustifiable optimism.

It may be possible through detachment, to gain knowledge that is 'useful;' but only through participation is it possible to gain the knowledge that is helpful.

I do not believe that I have had an interview with anybody in twenty-five years in which the person to whom I was talking was not annoyed during the early part of the interview by my asking stupid questions.

When people approach you angrily, you take them very seriously, and, if you're like me, with the faint suggestion that you can be angry too, and that you would like to know what the shooting is about