Obsessional prohibitions are extremely liable to displacement. They extend from one object to another along whatever paths the context may provide, and this new object then becomes, to use the apt expression of one of my women patients, 'impossible' - till at last the whole world lies under an embargo of 'impossibility'.

Humor is a means of obtaining pleasure in spite of the distressing effects that interface with it.

At bottom God is nothing more than an exalted father.

There is little that gives children greater pleasure than when a grown-up lets himself down to their level, renounces his oppressive superiority and plays with them as an equal.

Intolerance of groups is often, strangely enough, exhibited more strongly against small differences than against fundamental ones.

We have long observed that every neurosis has the result, and therefore probably the purpose, of forcing the patient out of real life, of alienating him from actuality.

A piece of creative writing, like a day-dream, is a continuation of, and a substitute for, what was once the play of childhood.