The Examined Life Quotes

“Closure is just as delusive-it is the false hope that we can deaden our living grief.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“Being present, whether with children, with friends, or even with oneself, is hard work. But isn't this attentiveness -- the feeling that someone is trying to think about us -- something we want more than praise?”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“Being loved is the problem, because love is a demand - when you're loved, someone wants more of you.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“It is less painful, it turns out, to feel betrayed than to feel forgotten.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“In trying so hard to be different from our parents, we're actually doing much the same thing -- doling out empty praise the way an earlier generation doled out thoughtless criticism. If we do it to avoid thinking about our child and her world, then praise, just like criticism, is ultimately expressing our indifference.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them. But if we cannot find a way of telling our story, our story tells us- we dream these stories, we develop symptoms, or we find ourselves acting in ways we don't understand.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“There cannot be change without loss”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“The future is a fantasy that shapes our present.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“we all try to silence painful emotions. but when we succeed in feeling nothing we lose the only means we have of knowing what hurts us and why.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“A lot of people, especially psychoanalysts, assume that happiness can only be found in a couple - but not all of us are made for a relationship.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“For a minute, the fantasy frightened her, but ultimately, this fear saved her from feeling alone.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“my breakdown was like a furnace and what was burned away was any belief in my own feelings”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“As he spoke, I had the mental image of a small boy switching on the nightlight, not because he wants to be able to find his parents during the night, but because he fears his parents will forget him - lose him - in the dark.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“Being present builds a child’s confidence because it lets the child know that she is worth thinking about.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“I think it takes time – it took me time – to realise just how very different people are from each other.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“i knew tht we all have the capacity to act in self-destructive ways, nevertheless i had a kind of faith that the desire to live was more powerful. now, instead, i felt its fragility. peter's suicide made me feel that the battle between the forces of life and death was far more evenly pitched.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“Experience has taught me that our childhoods leave in us stories like this – stories we never found a way to voice, because no one helped us to find the words. When we cannot find a way of telling our story, our story tells us – we dream these stories, we develop symptoms, or we find ourselves acting in ways we don’t understand.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“At one time or another, we all try to silence painful emotions. But when we succeed in feeling nothing we lose the only means we have of knowing what hurts us, and why.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“...the past is alive in the present. But the future is alive in the present too. The future is not some place we’re going to, but an idea is our mind now. It is something we’re creating, that in turn creates us. The future is a fantasy that shapes our present.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“Ultimately, the thrill created by being told ‘You’re so clever’ gave way to an increase in anxiety and a drop in self-esteem, motivation and performance.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“We receive and we lose, and we must try to achieve gratitude; and with that gratitude to embrace with whole hearts whatever of life that remains after the losses.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“means”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“Being present builds a child’s confidence because it lets the child know that she is worth thinking about. Without this, a child might come to believe that her activity is just a means to gain praise, rather than an end in itself. How can we expect a child to be attentive, if we’ve not been attentive to her?”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“Paul. Perhaps, she said.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“Being present builds a child’s confidence because it lets the child know that she is worth thinking about. Without this, a child might come to believe that her activity is just a means to gain praise, rather than an end in itself. How can we expect a child to be attentive, if we’ve not been attentive to her? Being present, whether with children, with friends, or even with oneself, is always hard work. But isn’t this attentiveness – the feeling that someone is trying to think about us – something we want more than praise?”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“Es mejor haber perdido algo que ser ese algo que alguien olvidó.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“La negatividad -el estado mental de preferiría no hacerlo- es nuestro deseo de darle la espalda al mundo, rechazando todo tipo de necesidades y apetitos.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“Al enfrentarnos al cambio dudamos, porque el cambio es pérdida. Pero si no aceptamos cierta pérdida, podemos perderlo todo.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“En otras palabras, la fantasías paranoides son perturbadoras, pero también son un mecanismo de defensa. Nos protegen de un desastre emocional mayor; a saber, el sentimiento de que nadie se preocupa por nosotros, de que no le importamos a nadie.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

“Ante todo, las fantasías paranoides son una respuesta al sentimiento de que estamos siendo tratados con indiferencia.”
― Stephen Grosz, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves