James Hillman Quotes

In my early professional years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?

My work is not about my life history. It's not about the story of my neurosis.

I love books, and all the best ones are people analysing their own emotions. You can learn from that.

The greatest explorer on this earth never takes voyages as long as those of the man who descends to the depth of his heart.

Everyone is complicated one way or another. But it's interesting to dig into a complicated character, to try to find that within yourself.

Great storytellers in the past would go to an unknown land and return to tell the stories they've found. Those were also journeys into their inner psyches and that's still true today. An actor, a writer, does that as if saying, 'Here's what I've discovered about myself and about the world I'm in. I would like to share this with you.'

'Orphans' reflects unconscious elements in myself that were, at the time, indigestible and butting up against each other in my psyche; issues I wasn't really in touch with but was trying to put into a dramatic framework.

Everything I have ever written about has been about what's going on inside of us.

I think it's good to explore it. I don't feel bad about that... I mean, I think everyone has a sense of - has a dark side, has a - carries some sort of pain with them. And I find it fun to crack it open and go there.

There's nothing ever monetarily or fame-seeking or any of the other motivations that sometimes go hand-in-hand with this profession. To me, it's just not like that. I'm on a journey of self-discovery and trying to avoid total existential crisis. That's the kind of operating zone that I'm approaching this business from.

I'd like to write about whatever is going on with me at that point of time or situations I'm - which I'm sure a lot of people can relate with. I mean, I'm a deep person. I'd like to dig deep into the psyche, but at the same time, you make things that are gonna lift everyone up.

When I have these negative thoughts and feelings, I like to dig into them because I like to get under them and see what's in there.

Gail Sheehy tells us that "the delights of self-discovery are always available." All Fools' Day is the perfect day to engrave this wisdom in our hearts.

Everyone should go inward, get curious about themselves, and investigate their shadows. It's one of the most important gifts we can give humanity. It's one of our most vital causes.

If a woman is to know herself, then periods of solitude should be courted, planned, and embraced.

I know there must be something I should explore about that with my therapist.

I can tell you that solitude Is not all exaltation, inner space Where the soul breathes and work can be done. Solitude exposes the nerve, Raises up ghosts. The past, never at rest, flows through it.

One of the aspects I like about the film is that there is a kind of emotional, psychological discussion during the storytelling, ... Before taking a drug, go through yourself, experience yourself, all your hopes and fears in your own time. Before the pharmacology, do the psychology.

For me, it's a voyage of self-discovery. I'm able to go on a set and to explore situations, personalities, people and characters that are close to me, or maybe not. Through going there and experiencing these different people and their situations, it helps me to get oriented and develop as a human being. So, acting is fundamental to who I am.

It's not too difficult to get the skeletons out of the closet with people, but to get the gold out is a different matter. That is therapy. Psychology is the Art of finding the gold of the spirit.

I use poetry to help me work through what I don’t understand, but I show up to each new poem with a backpack full of everywhere else that I’ve been.

You must experience everything that you are feeling. This is what will lead you to the splintered parts of your personality.

The thing about those conditions [anxiety and depression] that sucks the worst is that you don't address the root cause, so you never see it coming. What's worse is when you don't even KNOW what the root cause is, you can never fix the problem. So that's what's really scary.

I think it's increasingly hard to have deep self-knowledge without entering the darkness in some way.