Etgar Keret Quotes

I believe that all the survivors are mad. One time or another their madness will explode. You cannot absorb that much madness and not be influenced by it. That is why the children of survivors are so tragic. I see them in school. They don't know how

People who have been made to suffer by certain things cannot be reminded of them without a horror which paralyses every other pleasure

I was scarred in 1977 by watching Jaws, and I've never got over it.

I grew up in Brooklyn, and my parents were Holocaust survivors, so they never taught me anything about nature, but they taught me a lot about gratitude.

There is research on the effects of 9/11, and you know, compared to the enormity of it, it didn't have a huge effect on people's mood. They were going about their business, mostly.

I have friends with post-traumatic stress - friends with post-traumatic stress who are, you know, highly successful, capable people.

I have survivor's curiosity, I guess.

You do run and scream and cry and work yourself up into hysterics, and then you get back to the hotel at the end of the day, and you feel really off and really strange. And that's because rationally, even though you know everything is OK, you have put yourself through this traumatizing experience, and your body is still going.

Sometimes history reads like a catalogue of post-traumatic stress.

The Iraqis, because they had become so tired of war, they were very peaceful and easy to work with. But the Syrian children—–the boys—–they have this idea, "We have to go back to Syria to fight": They hear this constantly from their fathers—–you're going to be a soldier and go back to Syria—–so they're little rebels, not little kids. It's all about ... how they need to go back and avenge what happened.

It's such a big deal, the notion that these enslaved Africans had marriages and children... because therein lies our humanity, our capacity for love.

I may have some things tougher than the average person, but there are a lot of people who are going through worse things than me. I can't live in fear.

He that has been bitten by a snake is afraid of a rope.

I remember, after filming that last scene in 'The Walking Dead,' I had nightmares for weeks about being eaten alive. With 'Blair Witch,' I had nightmares as well. But what's scarier about 'Blair Witch' is thinking about what might have happened instead of death.

I'm not really good at worrying. I think I get that from my pops. He can be in some really dire straights and be a real optimist, so I don't sweat the petty stuff.

I grew up in a household with my mother, who was a Holocaust survivor. I very much understand the mentality that you cannot live in the past. You can't spend your entire life, or even portions of it, looking back and dwelling on things that have already happened. You have to move forward.

At times, I've been incapacitated by anxiety and unhappiness. You really know what joy is if you have experienced the opposite.

I can't play horror games anymore, let alone in VR.

I have PTSD from all the reporters coming in over the years.

You get these fear memories that are hard to undo.

It was like the first time i saw a cadaver. For weeks afterward the cadavers head, or what was left of it - floated up behind my eggs and bacon at breakfast and in the face of Buddy Willard, who was responsible for my seeing it in the first place, and pretty soon I felt as though I were carrying that cadavers head around with me on a string, like some black, noseless balloon stinking of vinegar.

The whole campfire idea freaked Piper out. It made her think of that huge purple bonfire in the dreams, and her father tied to a stake. What she got instead was almost as terrifying: a sing-along.

I'm starting to understand that fear is like cancer - you can beat it back, but if it returns, it can be worse than ever.

The knowledge that you were beaten and that this, as your parents tell you, was for your own good may well be retained (although not always), but the suffering caused by the way you were mistreated will remain unconscious and will later prevent you from empathizing with others. This is why battered children grow up to be mothers and fathers who beat their offspring

I went through what I imagine thousands of other women have felt. I told myself to stay calm, to be strong, and that I had no reason to think I wouldn't live to see my children grow up and to meet my grandchildren.