Eric Berne > Quotes

“The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing.”
― Eric Berne

“Awareness requires living in the here and now, and not in the elsewhere, the past or the future.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs.”
― Eric Berne

“The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“Beautiful friendships” are often based on the fact that the players complement each other with great economy and satisfaction, so that there is a maximum yield with a minimum effort from the games they play with each other.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“A loser doesn’t know what he’ll do if he loses but talks about what he’ll do if he wins and a winner doesn’t talk about what he’ll do if he wins but knows what he’ll do if he loses.”
― Eric Berne

“Pastimes and games are substitutes for the real living of real intimacy.”
― Eric Berne, Games people play: The psychology of human relationships

“The destiny of every human being is decided by what goes on inside his skull when confronted by what goes on outside his skull.”
― Eric Berne

“Everyone carries his parents around inside of him.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“The solitary individual can structure time in two ways: activity and fantasy.”
― Eric Berne, Games people play: The psychology of human relationships

“Such a woman is called "Mother's FRIEND" always ready to give judicious Parental advice and living vicariously on the experience of others”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“For certain fortunate people there is something which transcends all classifications of behaviour, and that is awareness; something which rises above the programming of the past, and that is spontaneity; and something that is more rewarding than games, and that is intimacy.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“we shared a common interest in how the past effects people—some let it decide who they are, while others make it part of what they will do.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“Game-free intimacy is or should be the most perfect form of human living.

Because there is so little opportunity for intimacy in daily life, and because some forms of intimacy (especially if intense) are psychologically impossible for most people, the bulk of time in serious social life is taken up with playing games. Hence games are both necessary and desirable, and the only problem at issue is whether the games played by an individual offer the best yield for him. In this connexion it should be remembered that the essential feature of a game is its culmination, or payoff. The principal function of the preliminary moves is to set up the situation for this payoff, but they are always designed to harvest the maximum permissible satisfaction at each step as a secondary product.

Games are passed on from generation to generation. The favoured game of any individual can be traced back to his parents and grandparents, and forward to his children.

Raising children is primarily a matter of teaching them what games to play. Different cultures and different social classes favour different types of games.

Many games are played most intensely by disturbed people, generally speaking, the more disturbed they are, the harder they play.

The attainment of autonomy is manifested by the release or recovery of three capacities: awareness, spontaneity and intimacy.

Parents, deliberately or unaware, teach their children from birth how to behave, think and perceive. Liberation from these influences is no easy matter, since they are deeply ingrained.

First, the weight of a whole tribal or family historical tradition has to be lifted. The same must be done with the demands of contemporary society at large, and finally advantages derived from one's immediate social circle have to be partly or wholly sacrificed. Following this, the individual must attain personal and social control, so that all the classes of behaviour become free choices subject only to his will. He is then ready for game-free relationships.”
― Eric Berne

“To hurry is to neglect that environment and to be conscious only of something that is still out of sight down the road, or of mere obstacles, or solely of oneself.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“Society frowns upon candidness, except in privacy; good sense knows that it can always be abused; and the Child fears it because of the unmasking which it involves. Hence in order to get away from the ennui of pastimes without exposing themselves to the dangers of intimacy, most people compromise for games when they are available, and these fill the major part of the more interesting hours of social intercourse. That is the social significance of games.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“It is not difficult to deduce from an individual’s position the kind of childhood he must have had. Unless something or somebody intervenes, he spends the rest of his life stabilizing his position and dealing with situations that threaten it: by avoiding them, warding off certain elements or manipulating them provocatively so that they are transformed from threats into justifications.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours.”
― Eric Berne, Games people play: The psychology of human relationships

“If someone frankly asks for reassurance and gets it, that is an operation. If someone asks for reassurance, and after it is given turns it in some way to the disadvantage of the giver, that is a game.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“The position is, then, that at any given moment each individual in a social aggregation will exhibit a Parental, Adult or Child ego state, and that individuals can shift with varying degrees of readiness from one ego state to another.”
― Eric Berne, Games people play: The psychology of human relationships

“Salesman: ‘This one is better, but you can’t afford it.’ Housewife: ‘That’s the one I’ll take.”
― Eric Berne, Games people play: The psychology of human relationships

“In short, a diamond bracelet is a much more honest instrument of courtship than a perforated stomach. She has the option of throwing the jewelry back at him, but she cannot decently walk out on the ulcer. ("Look How Hard I've Been Trying")”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“Parents, deliberately or unaware, teach their children from birth how to behave, drink, feel and perceive. Liberation from these influences is no easy matter.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“Despair is a concern of the Adult, while in depression it is the Child who has the executive power. Hopefulness, enthusiasm or a lively interest in one's surroundings is the opposite of depression; laughter is the opposite of despair.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“At the end of the party, each person will have selected certain players he would like to see more of, while others he will discard, regardless of how skillfully or pleasantly they each engaged in the pastime. The ones he selects are those who seem the most likely candidates for more complex relationships—that is, games. This sorting system, however well rationalized, is actually largely unconscious and intuitive.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“As this is written, a sow bug crawls across a desk. If he is turned over on his back, one can observe the tremendous struggle he goes through to get on his feet again. During this interval he has a ‘purpose’ in his life. When he succeeds, one can almost see the look of victory on his face. Off he goes, and one can imagine him telling his tale at the next meeting of sow bugs, looked up to by the younger generation as an insect who has made it. And”
― Eric Berne, Games people play: The psychology of human relationships

“Spontaneity means option, the freedom to choose and express one's feelings from the assortment available.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“the past effects people—some let it decide who they are, while others make it part of what they will do.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“There is no hope for the human race, but there is hope for individual members of it.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“The essential and similar feature of both procedures and rituals is that they are stereotyped. Once the first transaction has been initiated, the whole series is predictable and follows a predetermined course to a foreordained conclusion unless special conditions arise.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play