Character forms a life regardless of how obscurely that life is lived and how little light falls on it from the stars.
James HillmanI know my own deficiencies, one of which is that I had lived away from America for such a long time. It's called expatriate
James HillmanWe can't change anything until we get some fresh ideas, until we begin to see things differently.
James HillmanOf course, a culture as manically and massively materialistic as ours creates materialistic behavior in its people, especially in those people who've been subjected to nothing but the destruction of imagination that this culture calls education, the destruction of autonomy it calls work, and the destruction of activity it calls entertainment.
James HillmanI like to imagine a person's psyche to be like a boardinghouse full of characters. The ones who show up regularly and who habitually follow the house rules may not have met other long-term residents who stay behind closed doors, or who only appear at night. An adequate theory of character must make room for character actors, for the stuntmen and animal handlers, for all the figures who play bit parts and produce unexpected acts. They often make the show fateful, or tragic, or farcically absurd.
James Hillman