Quotes from Gavin de Becker

So when we wonder why we are victims so often, the answer is clear: It is because we are so good at it.

the energy of violence moves through our culture. Some experience it as a light but unpleasant breeze, easy to tolerate. Others are destroyed by it, as if by a hurricane. But nobody—nobody—is untouched

While we are quick to judge the human rights record of every other country on earth, it is we civilized Americans whose murder rate is ten times that of other Western nations, we civilized Americans who kill women and children with the most alarming frequency. In

This was said most artfully by Michelangelo when asked how he created his famous statue of David. He said "it is easy—you just chip away the stone that doesn't look like David.

I don't believe in such a thing as the criminal mind. Everyone's mind is criminal, we're all capable of criminal fantasies and thoughts." - Karl Menninger

In my life and work, I've seen the darkest parts of the human soul. (At least I hope they are the darkest.) That has helped me see more clearly the brightness of the human spirit. Feeling the sting of violence myself has helped me feel more keenly the hand of human kindness.

Ingmar Bergman said, "Imagine I throw a spear into the dark. That is my intuition. Then I have to send an expedition into the jungle to find the spear. That is my intellect.

Safety is the preeminent concern of all creatures and it clearly justifies a seemingly abrupt and rejecting response from time to time.

People can be very motivated to become very control experts because an inability to predict behavior is absolutely intolerable for human beings and every other social animal. The fact that most people act predictably is literally is what holds human societies together.

Because there was no expectation that I'd be right on any of this, I had simply said what came into my head. I thought I was making it up, creating it. More likely, I was calling it up, discovering it.

the first time a woman is hit, she is a victim and the second time, she is a volunteer.

There's a story about David Mamet, a pure genius of human behavior. When told about the complaints of two famous cast members in one of his plays, he joked "If they didn't want to be stars, they shouldn't have had those awful childhoods." It's not an original revelation that some who have weathered great challenges when they were young, created great things as adults...People with the most secret childhoods can make the most public contributions.

Still, women's concerns about safety are frequently the subject of critical comments from the men in their lives. One woman told me of constant ridicule and sarcasm from her boyfriend whenever she discussed fear or safety. He called her precautions silly and asked, "How can you live like that?" To which she replied, "How could I not?" I

If we studied any other creature in nature and found the record of intra-species violence that human beings have, we would be repulsed by it. We'd view it as a great perversion of natural law—but we wouldn't deny it.

Samuel Smiles said, "Personalities itself is plainly a vehicle for self-advancement. Men who's acts are a direct variance with their words command no respect, and what they say has but little weight." Trust, formerly earned through actions, is now purchased through slight of hand and slight of words.

Though we want to believe that violence is a matter of cause and effect, it is actually a process, a chain in which the violent outcome is only one link. The

Ask yourself, "Why does this person need to convince me?" The answer turns out is not about him, it's about you. The reason someone promises something, the reason he needs to convince you is that he can see that you're not convinced, you have doubt, which is a messenger of intuition, likely because there is reason to doubt.

People who refuse to let go are becoming more common, and each case teaches us the same valuable lesson: Don't engage in a war. Wars rarely end well because by definition someone will have to lose.

Sending a sheep after a predator is merely home delivery

Children require the protection of adults, usually from adults. Their fear of people is not yet developed, their intuition not yet loaded with enough information and experience to keep them from harm. The lesson for parents in the cases I've cited is to take nothing for granted when it comes to the safety of your children.

It is analogous to hooking someone up to life-support systems when he has no quality of life and no chance for survival. Though some may believe this extends the process of life, it actually extends the process of death.

Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out." —Karl A. Menninger

An absurdly literal example helps demonstrate this: As you stand near the edge of a high cliff, you might fear getting too close. If you stand right at the edge, you no longer fear getting too close, you now fear falling. Edward Gorey gives us his dark-humored but accurate take on the fact that if you do fall, you no longer fear falling—you fear landing:

Pre-incident indicators are those detectable factors that occur before the outcome being predicted.