Helen Gahagan Quotes

When our hatred is too alive puts us below what we hate.

I am interested in madness. I believe it is the biggest thing in the human race, and the most constant. How do you take away from a man his madness without also taking away his identity? Are we sure it is desirable for a man's spirit not to be at war with itself, or that it is better to be serene and ready to go to dinner than to be excited and unwilling to stop for a cup of coffee, even?

Worry divides the mind.

I suddenly realized. The zebra. It is not something outside of us. The zebra is something inside of us. Our fears. Our own self-destructive nature. The zebra is the worst part of us when we are face-to-face with our worst times. The demon is us!

Doubt, not self-reflection, comes from a destructive energy, and when it rears its head, I talk to it like a lunatic.

Guilt stirs me, but only to self-pity.

I know that you cannot hate other people without hating yourself.

When you live as I do, you cannot indulge in jealousy. If you do, it will rip you apart.

Resentment is just a way of letting someone else use your mind rent-free.

In the tiny torn up pieces of his mind he's irresistible too.

To one's enemies: "I hate myself more than you ever could.

We are wont to condemn self-love; but what we really mean to condemn is contrary to self-love. It is that mixture of selfishness and self-hate that permanently pursues us, that prevents us from loving others, and that prohibits us from losing ourselves.

I'm more interested in the psychic intricacies that they build up and try to run away from, and how they self-construct. A lot of my work is about self-construction. Here, it's those folks who are deeply wounded and bewildered. They're not just victims of trauma; they've been shaken so forcefully that they don't quite know how or where to stand.

Just remember when you think you're free, the crack in your heart is me.

You know why you hate me so much, Jeffery? Because I look the way you feel.

You hate me because I am the embodiment of all your doubts.

I can control the weather with my moods. I just can’t control my moods.

jealousy is the direct result of self-betrayal.

Mattie sat at the table, obsessing, orbiting around herself. She was sick of her worried, hostile mind. It would have killed her long before, she felt, if it hadn't needed the transportation.

Jealousy endlessly eats through my mind, and jealously endlessly makes me be unkind.

When the beginnings of self destruction enter the heart, it seems no bigger than a grain of sand.

A man whose mind feels that it is captive would prefer to blind himself to the fact. But if he hates falsehood, he will not do so; and in that case he will have to suffer a lot. He will beat his head against the wall until he faints. He will come to again

I was hell bent on destruction... it was like being possessed by a demon.

She fell into the moody, miserable state of mind which often comes when strong wills have to yield to the inevitable.