Quotes About Psychology

Our culture is steeped in positive thinking - from the self-help mega-industry to college courses in positive psychology to the enduring pull of the American dream. There is no dislike button on Facebook. Nobody wants to be a downer.

There is no such thing as mental illness, hence also no such thing as psychotherapy.

Writing can make you feel a bit psychotic. You create a world, and you're sitting inside it all day long, talking to people who are not really there.

Girls of 7, 8 or 9 years old are not emotionally or psychologically equipped to handle puberty.

My individual, psychological descent coincided, ironically, with my ascent into the public eye.

Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900. It introduced the notion that there existed certain predictable and identifiable processes by which dreams were formed.

Puerto Rican culture is very different from Mexican culture. Part of the Mexican psychology is the idea of being an immigrant or being illegal or being confused with that. That doesn't happen with Puerto Ricans, because you're a commonwealth.

If you compulsively pun you are called a paronomasiac.

Scoring two goals to win a game will hurt an opponent more than a punch in the face.

My father gave me Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' when I was in junior high; my junior high, angst-filled soul responded to that.

Years of research in psychology has shown that rewards and punishments can be very effective in changing behavior. But, at the same time, they can create an addiction to rewards and punishments.

The mystic purchases a moment of exhilaration with a lifetime of confusion; and the confusion is infectious and destructive. It is confusing and destructive to try and explain anything in terms of anything else, poetry in terms of psychology.

Purely altruistic behavior is pretty much impossible because of the selfish pleasures we derive from it.

I've read enough dreary campus novels to know more than I ever wanted to about the punctured Oxbridge academic psyche, and feel as if I've been through a mid-life crisis dozens of times, purely because I've foolishly grabbed a paperback by an author I've vaguely heard of.

I don't think a lot of actors talk about it, but there's usually a process where you essentially purge yourself of the character that you played prior to the movie.

Emotions serve characters' purposes. That is their motivation.

For me, what really excites me about my characters and what pushes their core is the kind of dark, sad side of life.

A mountain of evidence shows that our bodies are pushing, shaping, even leading our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. That the body affects the mind is, it's fair to say, incontestable. And it's doing so in ways that either facilitate or impede our ability to bring our authentic best selves to our biggest challenges.

Although we often assume that feelings inspire actions, in fact, actions also inspire feelings. By pushing myself to act happier, I make myself feel happier.

The mind is the result of the torments the flesh undergoes or inflicts upon itself.

Playing deep-stack, no-limit hold'em is a very complex game where the most critical and difficult decisions come after the flop.

When guys get competitive and get under each other's skin, it brings you out more. Some people fold.

I think if a character appeals to you, there are certain parts of yourself will come to the fore and other parts that will play down.

I have a theory that all abuse, no matter what kind of abuse it is, is foremost an assault on the mind.