Quotes from Ruby Wax

We never see the world as it really is but only how we see it. And because we're trapped in our own interpretation, we are prepared to go to war with other people caught in their view of reality – and never the twain shall meet.

Out on the Savannah, our physiological responses were perfectly suited to deal with stressors (run from the big animals with big teeth). These days we can't just run from what drives up our anxiety and stress; mortgages, money problems, looking hot, relationships and deadlines. Evolution did not set us up to suffer Jurassic Park levels of stress, day in day out; that's the bitch of living at today's pace. Psychological

The ultimate freedom lies in knowing everything, including you, is in a state of flux; you're never still, you're always 'nexting';

Life is not a rerun, we don't have stunt doubles or understudies, we're it. The universe doesn't happen to us, we are the universe happening. It actually matters what we do.

The most cognitively brilliant people usually have had to sacrifice their emotional selves.

Now we determine each other's worth by asking, 'What do you do?' If you say 'nothing', people move away from you as if you're a corpse.

We are our own walking pharmacies shooting ourselves up with our own homemade chemicals. This constant need for a fix to make you feel good prompts you to pursue rewards over and over again and strengthens the behaviour that made you want to get them in the first place. It's a vicious circle. So

If we're not wanting, we're waiting. Waiting for what, we don't know, but something and it's going to happen soon.

Our brains collect images from the moment we're born and file them away as either safe or dangerous. Whenever we see someone or something we dive into our memories to see who that person or scene reminds us of.

Each of us thinks somewhere inside we have a purpose. Long ago we didn't have this existentialist angst; we were hunters or gatherers.

How come every other organ in your body can get sick and you get sympathy, except the brain?

Why is that when people become ill and have something wrong with any of their organs, they get sympathy from other people - except when that organ is their brain?

People who say … they're perfectly fine [are] more insane than the rest of us.

I'm a misplaced American, but don't know where I was misplaced.

Being a mother is hard and it wasn't a subject I ever studied.

I have to keep reminding myself that I am their mother. Sometimes we are sitting at home and I feel like we are waiting for our mom to come home.

College atheletes used to get a degree in bringing your pencil.

When our computers overload we know to switch them off and boot them up again a bit later. Why can't we do that to ourselves without feeling like a failure?

So this is the human condition: we're living longer, getting taller, and are a push of a finger away from every other person on the planet and yet we do not know how to run ourselves.

So many people want to label you as funny or aggressive or a mess. We are condemned by other people to stagnate in the image they have of us; held ransom by their expectations like a butterfly pinned on cardboard.

I have learnt that how someone sees you is really none of your business; it's the film they're playing of you, nothing to do with you, so move away from the building.

This mish mash of three brains, called the lizard-squirrel-monkey brain, all trying to function at once is one reason why we're nuts.

when we perceive danger, adrenaline shoots into us but because we can't kill a traffic warden or eat an estate agent, the juice never comes back down. We're in a constant state of red light alert, like a car siren that drives you nuts. Because

sick. Stress increases your risk of getting diseases that make you sick, or if you're already sick and you add stress, you can kiss farewell to your natural defences.