Cameron > Cameron's Quotes

“If people knew the story of their lives, how many would then elect to live them? ”
― Cormac McCarthy

“That's the point. Every kind of animal thinks its own kind of animal is wonderful. So people getting married think they're wonderful, and that they're going to have a baby-- that's wonderful, when actually they're as ugly as rhinoceroses. Just because we think we're so wonderful doesn't mean we really are. We could be really terrible animals and just never admit it because it would hurt so much.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus

“Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“Will having a newborn distract from the time we have together?" she asked. "Don't you think saying goodbye to your child will make your death more painful?"

"Wouldn't it be great if it did?" I said. Lucy and I both felt that life wasn't about avoiding suffering.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Another way to be prepared is to think negatively. Yes, I'm a great optimist. but, when trying to make a decision, I often think of the worst case scenario. I call it 'the eaten by wolves factor.' If I do something, what's the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves? One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist, is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don't worry about, because I have a plan in place if they do.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“So, now I've been to see a drug counselor who told me I need to lay off the drugs and talk about my feelings, and a shrink who heard what I had to say and immediately put me on drugs.”
― Libba Bray, Going Bovine

“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

“True humility, we believe, consists of two things. The first is knowing our limitations. And the second is getting the help we need.”
― Robert L. Moore, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering Masculinity Through the Lens of Archetypal Psychology - A Journey into the Male Psyche and Its Four Essential Aspects

“In the absence of The King the Warrior becomes a mercenary, the Magician becomes a sophist (able to argue any position and believing in none), and the Lover becomes an addict.”
― robert l. moore, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine

“He is emotionally distant as long as he is in the Warrior. This does not mean that the man accessing the Warrior in his fullness is cruel, just that he does not make his decisions and implement them out of emotional relatedness to anyone or anything except his ideal.”
― Robert L. Moore, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering Masculinity Through the Lens of Archetypal Psychology - A Journey into the Male Psyche and Its Four Essential Aspects

“The biggest gift of being unambiguously mentally ill is the time I've saved myself trying to be normal.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So

“Most adults have forgotten what they had to do to survive childhood.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So

“I understand perfectly why some of my autistic patients scream and flap their arms--it's to frighten off extroverts”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So

“Writing is very hard mostly because until you try to write something down, it’s easy to fool yourself into believing you understand things. Writing is terrible for vanity and self-delusion.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir

“Put on all the armor of the Lord. Not just the pretty stuff.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir

“There are no people anywhere who don’t have some mental illness. It all depends on where you set the bar and how hard you look.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir

“Short time here, long time gone. The reason to try to be good, smart, kind, and on the side of angels is because it's more fun and because there really aren't any angels.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So

“Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies: The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves.” (p.97)”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“The brain-disease model overlooks four fundamental truths: (1) our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another. Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring well-being; (2) language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences, helping us to define what we know, and finding a common sense of meaning; (3) we have the ability to regulate our own physiology, including some of the so-called involuntary functions of the body and brain, through such basic activities as breathing, moving, and touching; and (4) we can change social conditions to create environments in which children and adults can feel safe and where they can thrive.

When we ignore these quintessential dimensions of humanity, we deprive people of ways to heal from trauma and restore their autonomy. Being a patient, rather than a participant in one’s healing process, separates suffering people from their community and alienates them from an inner sense of self.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“I am, at the Fed level, libertarian;
at the state level, Republican;
at the local level, Democrat;
and at the family and friends level, a socialist.
If that saying doesn’t convince you of the fatuousness of left vs. right labels, nothing will.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the game

“The curse of modernity is that we are increasingly populated by a class of people who are better at explaining than understanding, or better at explaining than doing.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

“What matters isn’t what a person has or doesn’t have; it is what he or she is afraid of losing.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

“You can define a free person precisely as someone whose fate is not centrally or directly dependent on peer assessment.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

“If you do not take risks for your opinion, you are nothing.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

“Start by being nice to every person you meet. But if someone tries to exercise power over you, exercise power over him.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

“Entrepreneurs are heroes in our society. They fail for the rest of us.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life