For nearly a century the psychoanalysts have been writing op-ed pieces about the workings of a country they've never traveled to, a place that, like China, has been off-limits. Suddenly, the country has opened its borders and is crawling with foreign correspondents, neurobiologists are filing ten stories a week, filled with new data. These two groups of writers, however, don't seem to read each other's work. That's because the analysts are writing about a country they call Mind and the neuroscientists are reporting from a country they call Brain.

The world didn't stop because we weren't in it anymore.

An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.

The girl at her music sits in another sort of light,the fitful,overcast light of lie,by which we see ourselves and others only imprefectly, and seldom..-Girl,Interrupted

It was my misfortune-or salvation-to be at all times perfectly conscious of my misperceptions of reality.

A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind.

Whatever we call it - mind, character, soul - we like to think we possess something that is greater than the sum of our neurons and that animates us.