Edward M. Hallowell > Quotes

“To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage." ~Samuel Johnson”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Dare to Forgive: The Power of Letting Go and Moving On

“Forgiveness takes intelligence, discipline, imagination, and persistence, as well as a special psychological strength, something athletes call mental toughness and warriors call courage.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Dare to Forgive: The Power of Letting Go and Moving On

“Keep those faces in mind, the little girls and boys in the early grades, all trusting the adults to show them the way, all eager and excited about life and what will come next, and then just follow those faces over time. Follow the face of a little girl who doesn't read very well and is told to try harder; who tends to daydream and is told she better pay attention; who talks out in class when she sees something fascinating, like a butterfly on the windowpane, and is told to leave the class and report to the principal; who forgets her homework and is told she will just never learn, will she; who writes a story rich in imagination and insight and is told her handwriting and spelling are atrocious; who asks for help and is told she should try harder herself before getting others to do her work for her; who begins to feel unhappy in school and is told that big girls try harder. This is the brutal process of the breaking of the spirit of a child. I can think of no more precious resource than the spirits of our children. Life necessarily breaks us all down somewhat, but to do it unnecessarily to our children in the name of educating them -- this is a tragedy. To take the joy of learning -- which one can see in any child experimenting with something new -- to take that joy and turn it into fear -- that is something we should never do.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood

“THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE ADD ADULTS 1. Do what you’re good at. Don’t spend too much time trying to get good at what you’re bad at. (You did enough of that in school.) 2. Delegate what you’re bad at to others, as often as possible. 3. Connect your energy to a creative outlet. 4. Get well enough organized to achieve your goals. The key here is “well enough.” That doesn’t mean you have to be very well organized at all—just well enough organized to achieve your goals. 5. Ask for and heed advice from people you trust—and ignore, as best you can, the dream-breakers and finger-waggers. 6. Make sure you keep up regular contact with a few close friends. 7. Go with your positive side. Even though you have a negative side, make decisions and run your life with your positive side.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder

“When we forgive, the slave we free is ourselves.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Dare to Forgive: The Power of Letting Go and Moving On

“To tell a person who has ADD to try harder is about as helpful as telling someone who is nearsighted to squint harder.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder

“While we all need external structure in our lives—some degree of predictability, routine, organization—those with ADD need it much more than most people. They need external structure so much because they so lack internal structure.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“That’s the problem with being an adult: people have already made up their minds about us; we’ve even made up our minds about ourselves.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Forgiving yourself means that you give up on your hope that the past will be different.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Dare to Forgive: The Power of Letting Go and Moving On

“Russell Barkley similarly describes the primary problem in ADD as a deficit in the motivation system, which makes it impossible to stay on task for any length of time unless there is constant feedback, constant reward.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Forgiveness is not turning the other cheek. Forgiveness is not running away. Forgiveness does not mean that you condone what the person has done, nor does it mean that you invite them to do it again. It doesn't mean that you forget the offense, nor does it mean that by forgiving you tacitly invite bad things to happen again. It doesn't mean that you won't defend yourself.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Dare to Forgive: The Power of Letting Go and Moving On

“My thoughts are like butterflies. They are beautiful, but they fly away.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder

“The best reason to take your time is that this time is the only time you'll ever have.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! Strategies for Coping in a World Gone ADD

“A person with ADHD has the power of a Ferrari engine but with bicycle-strength brakes. It’s the mismatch of engine power to braking capability that causes the problems. Strengthening one’s brakes is the name of the game.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0: New Science and Essential Strategies

“Barely, but I did. Then in college I did really well. Can you imagine that? Which is why I went to graduate school. But that was probably a big mistake. I should have quit while I was ahead. You see, my problem is I don’t know whether I’m smart or if I’m stupid. I’ve done well, and I’ve done poorly, and I’ve been told that I’m gifted and I’ve been told that I’m slow. I don’t know what I am.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“People with ADD often have a special “feel” for life, a way of seeing right into the heart of matters, while others have to reason their way along methodically.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder

“it helps to think of ADHD as a complex set of contradictory or paradoxical tendencies: a lack of focus combined with an ability to superfocus; a lack of direction combined with highly directed entrepreneurialism; a tendency to procrastinate combined with a knack for getting a week’s worth of work done in two hours; impulsive, wrongheaded decision making combined with inventive, out-of-the-blue problem solving; interpersonal cluelessness combined with uncanny intuition and empathy; the list goes on.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0: New Science and Essential Strategies

“Having ADD makes life paradoxical. You can superfocus sometimes, but also space out when you least mean to. You can radiate confidence and also feel as insecure as a cat in a kennel. You can perform at the highest level, feeling incompetent as you do so. You can be loved by many, but feel as if no one really likes you. You can absolutely, totally, intend to do something, then forget to do it. You can have the greatest ideas in the world, but feel as if you can’t accomplish a thing.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Most adults with ADD are struggling to express a part of themselves that often seems unraveled as they strive to join the thought behind unto the thought before.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“The tension of constructing an explanation, from A to B to C to D, apparently so simple a task, irritates many people with ADD. While they can hold the information in mind, they do not have the patience to sequentially put it out. That is too tedious. They would like to dump the information in a heap on the floor all at once and have it be comprehended instantly. Otherwise,”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“For all the hoopla you read and hear about the overdiagnosis of ADD and the overuse of medication-indeed, serious problems in certain places—the more costly problem is the opposite: millions of people, especially adults, have ADD but don't know about it and there fore get no help at all.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder

“While trying harder helps just about everything, telling someone with ADD to try harder is no more helpful than telling someone who is nearsighted to squint harder. It missed the biological point.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Another, less polite way of saying it: People with attention issues tend to have acute bullshit detectors. We hate hypocrisy maybe more than any other human failing, and we can spot it a mile away.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0: New Science and Essential Strategies

“the dysregulation of the body’s neurobiological system, that impairs one’s ability to pay selective attention to one’s surroundings. The world becomes a land without street signs, the individual a car in bad need of a tune-up. The vastness of the attentional system partially accounts for the variation of ADD “types.” Where one individual needs an oil change, the next needs spark plugs replaced. Where one individual is withdrawn and overwhelmed by stimuli, the next is hyperactive and can’t get enough stimuli. Where one is frequently anxious, the other is depressed. To compensate, each develops his or her own coping strategies that developmentally add to, or subtract from, the brain’s various subsystems. So Mr. A becomes a stand-up comedian, and manic. Ms. B becomes an architectural wizard with obsessive-compulsive traits. Their offspring become a sculptor and a stunt pilot. None of them can balance their checkbook. And all of them wish they had more time in the day. With such diversity in the disorder,”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“People with ADHD—at any age—often possess intellectual effervescence. Unfortunately, this natural sparkle can be snuffed out by years of criticism, reprimands, redirection, lack of appreciation, and repeated disappointments, frustrations, and outright failures.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0: New Science and Essential Strategies

“A streak of Puritanism runs deep within American society. Permissive and pioneering as we may be on the one hand, we are strict and conservative on the other. As much as we may be a country of mavericks and entrepreneurs, we are also a country of finger waggers and name-callers. As much as we may be a country of compassion for the underdog, we are also a country that believes in self-reliance.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood

“Always valuable, your attention has now also become one of your most insecure assets and most-sought-after possessions.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! Strategies for Coping in a World Gone ADD

“No brain is the same. No brain is the best. Each brain finds its own special way. —From a poem written by Edward Hallowell to his five-year-old daughter”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0: New Science and Essential Strategies

“We’ve got an overabundance of attention, more attention than we can cope with; our constant challenge is to control it.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0: New Science and Essential Strategies

“We often explain ADHD to children using a very simple analogy that certainly resonates with adults, too: A person with ADHD has the power of a Ferrari engine but with bicycle-strength brakes. It’s the mismatch of engine power to braking capability that causes the problems. Strengthening one’s brakes is the name of the game.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0: New Science and Essential Strategies