Quotes from Gavin de Becker

A Federal research project selected 1,600 children who had been abused or neglected and followed them for nearly twenty years.

Threatening words are dispatched like soldiers under strict orders: Cause anxiety that cannot be ignored. Surprisingly, their deployment isn't entirely bad news. It's bad, of course, that someone threatens violence, but the threat means that at least for now, he has considered violence and decided against doing it. The threat means that at least for now (and usually forever), he favors words that alarm over actions that harm.

As the most powerful people in history, we have climbed to the top of the world food chain, so to speak. Facing not one single enemy or predator who poses to us any danger of consequence, we've found the only prey left: ourselves.

Worry is a cloying way to have connection with others, the idea being that to worry about someone shows love. The other side of this is the belief that not worrying about someone means you don't care about them. As many worried-about people will tell you, worry is a poor substitute for love or for taking loving action.

Albert Einstein said that when you follow intuition, "The solutions come to you, and you don't know how or why.

The abuser is the only person who can deliver moments of peace, by being his better self for a while. Thus, the abuser holds the key to the abused person's feeling of well-being.

The woman whose shoulders tense slightly, who looks intimidated and shyly says, "No, thanks, I think I've got it," may be his victim. Conversely, the woman who turns toward him, raises her hands to the STOP position, and says directly, "I don't want your help," is less likely to be his victim. A

My childhood wasn't a movie, of course, though it did have chase sequences, fight scenes, shoot-outs, skyjacking, life and death suspense, and suicide. The plot didn't make much sense to me as a boy, but it does now. It turns out I was attending an academy of sorts, and though hopefully on different subjects, so were you. No matter what your major, you too have been studying people for a long time, carefully developing theories and strategies to predict what they might do.

Men of all ages and in all parts of the world are more violent than women. For this reason, the language in this book is mostly gender-specific to men. When it comes to violence, women can proudly relinquish recognition in the language, because here at least, politically correct would be statistically incorrect.

Men who will not harm you needn't persuade you to trust them; they simply act appropriately from the moment you meet them and for as long as you know them. They

Ordinary citizens can encounter violence at their jobs to the point that homicide is now the leading cause of death for women in the workplace.

seven key abilities human beings need to effectively manage life: the ability to motivate ourselves, to persist against frustration, to delay gratification, to regulate moods, to hope, to empathize, and to control impulse. Many

In ourselves our safety must be sought. By our own right hand it must be wrought." —William Wordsworth All

A strategy of watch and wait is usually the wisest first step, but people frequently apply another management plan: engage and enrage.

people who don't hear you don't hear you.

In the original form of the word, to worry someone else was to harass, strangle, or choke them. Likewise, to worry oneself is a form of self-harassment. To give it less of a role in our lives, we must understand what it really it is.

Worry is a way to avoid change; when we worry, we don't do anything about the matter.

Typecasting always involves a slight insult, and usually one that is easy to refute. But since it is the response itself that the typecaster seeks, the defense is silence, acting as if the words weren't even spoken.

The unsolicited promise is one of the most reliable signals because it is nearly always of questionable motive. Promises are used to convince us of an intention, but they are not guarantees. A

Declining to hear "no" is a signal that someone is either seeking control or refusing to relinquish it. With strangers, even those with the best intentions, never, ever relent on the issue of "no," because it sets the stage for more efforts to control. If you let someone talk you out of the word "no," you might as well wear a sign that reads, "You are in charge.

Many believe the process of creativity is one of assembling thoughts and concepts, but highly creative people will tell you that the idea, the song, the image, was in them, and their task was to get it out, a process of discovery, not design. This

You cannot turn a decent man into a violent one by being momentarily rude, but you can present yourself as an ideal target by appearing too timid.

We want to believe that human violence is somehow beyond our understanding, because as long as it remains a mystery, we have no duty to avoid it, explore it, or anticipate it. We need feel no responsibility for failing to read signals if there are none to read.

As long as there are parents preparing children for little more than incarceration, we'll have no trouble keeping our prisons full.