Quotes About Escalation

eventually that pain turned to bitterness, and the bitterness turned to anger, and the anger became rage. Until that rage became madness.

the fact that a police officer on TV said what used to be a fist fight or road rage is now a shooting, and what used to be a domestic dispute is now a gun rampage, and what used to be a tardy or disruptive student is now a school shooter, the fact that the police aren't much better themselves, the fact that what used to be an arrest or a warning is now a split-second execution

If the reaction is worse than the action, the problem usually increases. If the reaction is less than the action, the problem usually decreases.

Then I tug the toaster from the wall and swing the appliance around my head like a lasso. I'm not aiming to knock her out. I'm aiming to knock off her fucking head.

Objectification is a critical reason why an abuser tends to get worse over time. As his conscience adapts to one level of cruelty—or violence—he builds to the next.

Our numbers have increased in Vietnam because the aggression of others has increased in Vietnam. There is not, and there will not be, a mindless escalation.

You burn a man's pickup, and he's ready for war.

In ten days—ten days!—the epidemic had exploded from a few hundred civilian cases and one or two deaths a day to hundreds of thousands ill and hundreds of deaths each day.

In spite of the escalation, there was as yet no sense of an impending crisis.

Firebomb the place," Laertes said, from the room he and Brent shared, where he was playing a video game. "No one's firebombing anything," Brent yelled back to Laertes. "Yet," Laertes replied. "You can't firebomb your way out of every problem," Brent said. "You can't," Laertes called back.

Is there no end to this escalation of desire?

The key fact to know when somebody goes nuclear is that the person is stuck in attack mode, so rational, reasonable, intelligent conversation won't work. A guy who's throwing a computer at the boss or waving a gun around can't listen to reason, because he can't access the higher thought processes that say "Hey, calm down—this is crazy.

Your task, if you're facing a person who's running amok, is to break that lock. How? By talking the person up gradually from "I want to hurt someone" to "I'm terribly upset" to "I need to find a smart way to handle this." These stages correlate with the three levels of the brain: the primitive reptile brain, the emotional mammal brain, and the logical human brain.

It's one small lie, followed by a demand for a bigger lie and a bigger concession, a bigger moral lapse,

There is nothing about a bad situation that fourteen hyper cheerleaders can't worsen.

Is that where you took care of him? In a restroom?" "No. I walked him out to the runway and threw him in front of a Boeing.

looked as if he might hit Jack, but the giant killer just

This paradox of rising expectations suggests that improving the quality of life might be an insurmountable task. In fact, there is no inherent problem in our desire to escalate our goals, as long as we enjoy the struggle along the way. The

This time, as with every time, when the fighting starts it will be more terrible than the fight that came before. Always it is the worst, the most violent, the least restrained, a steady escalation. The singular rule.

Life is exponential. Two becomes four, becomes ten thousand, becomes a plague.

Playing Dead is a compelling book—a true page-turner. Smart, strong, and protective of her children, Monique was barraged with snide comments and criticism, yet had no idea that this was verbal abuse and never suspected its extreme escalation. Every chapter compels the reader forward to what's next."—Patricia Evans, author of The Verbally Abusive Relationship, Controlling People, and more.

Oh, yeah?" Seth says, growing angry. "How did you die again? Freak accident falling down the stairs?

You don't pull out a rocket launcher because some drunk throws a punch at you. That's overkill," said Paddy, referring

at an exponential rate, and the entire Confederation will fall, every living human will become possessed.