Keith Ablow > Quotes

“Most of you guys can't see the potential in a nervous breakdown. A real collapse. There's more chance of finding yourself in a major depression than there is in a bottle Prozac.”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“But insight doesn't necessarily produce self-control. Sometimes you just see your destructiveness more clearly.”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“People react predictably, especially when they don't have time to think.”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“My throat tightened, but I held back the tears and reminded myself that withdrawing from a woman is no different than kicking a drug; you feel shaky and you want it, but eventually the need passes, and you feel restored.”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“We are, all of us, crippled and twisted. Most of us strive desperately to keep our grotesqueries out of sight and mind. Our suffering is transformed by an alchemy of the soul into addiction, ulcers, strokes, hatred, even war.”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“Relationships are never chance events.”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“...Some people hurt so much they can't take what they need, even when someone wants to give it to them. (106)”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“But that's the hardest part of healing.'
What?'
Realizing there's no one to hate.”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“Most children would rather preserve the fantasy of a loving connection with their fathers and mothers, at all costs, even if it costs them their self-esteem. When you're three or seven years old, it's less frightening to think of yourself as an unlovable, disappointing screwup than to recognize the fact that you're living with a monster.”
― Keith Ablow, Compulsion

“When people can do something simple to avoid conflict--say, hit a button or unlock a latch--they'll generally do it.”
― Keith Ablow, Murder Suicide

“What was it about not knowing a person that allowed you to wonder whether she might be the answer to all your problems?”
― Keith Ablow, Murder Suicide

“The roots of any evil deed can be traced to the perpetrator's refusal to experience pain.”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“God is not attracted to mountaintops or church steeples. God is drawn to suffering, and the dark places it surfaces, which is why sharing pain freely feels very much like love, and may be the same thing. (207)”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“People blush when one of their core truths is revealed.”
― Keith Ablow, Murder Suicide

“The irrational thoughts were the ones with the power to burn holes in your gut.”
― Keith Ablow, Murder Suicide

“A jealous husband is an ugly thing.”
― Keith Ablow, Murder Suicide

“The truth will set you free. Unless you're guilty.”
― Keith Ablow, Murder Suicide

“For a psychiatrist to be any good, he has to be willing to corner you, close off the easy exits, even when it hurts. It's supposed to. (46)”
― Keith Ablow, The Architect

“Plenty of people who survive tragedies end up ambivalent about danger--frightened by it, yet strangely drawn to it.”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“I figured anybody who talked about church as much as she did was using it a little like cocaine anyhow.”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“There's no original evil left in the world. Everyone's just recycling pain. (257)”
― Keith Ablow, Projection

“The bad things don't seem to happen to bad people.'
That's because they already did. There's no original evil left in the world.”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“What about my rights? What about a person's privacy? Did all that just go to hell after 9/11?”
― Keith Ablow, Murder Suicide

“Everything terrible is something that needs our love. - Rilke (231)”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“Maybe the trying is the thing. Maybe it doesn't get better than that. Maybe you never quite get there. And maybe that's okay.”
― Keith Ablow, Murder Suicide

“Sometimes when you push someone, you find out who that person really is.”
― Keith Ablow, Murder Suicide

“God is not attracted to mountaintops or church steeples. God is drawn to suffering, and the dark places it surfaces.”
― Keith Ablow, Denial

“...Loving anyone, anywhere, at any time, leaves you infinitely vulnerable at every single moment.”
― Keith Ablow

“You've got to think of every talent you have, every gift you could give the world around you. And you've got to take the chance of giving it. (246)”
― Keith Ablow, Murder Suicide: A Novel

“Human empathy, while not found on any chart of human anatomy, is the reason we instinctively hurt for our children… it is the reason that one human being’s intensely personal tests and triumphs can be harnessed to the good of countless others.”
― Keith Ablow, The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life