Robert Dallek Quotes

The most intimidating world leader was Lyndon Johnson, who became U.S. President when John Kennedy was assassinated. He exulted in this power and liked to inspire fear.

In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject quite so worthy of my attention.

You have to be narcissistic to be an artist. You have to think you are the centre of the whole thing; otherwise, why do you create? The only thing is to recognise it, and then you make the best of it.

One thing a narcissist doesn't like is to look in a mirror that is in any way genuinely reflective of what's on the other side of it.

I always call myself a recovering narcissist. I lived my life thinking everything was about me.

In general, I can't stand people who always turn a conversation into something about them. I can't stand it when people are too into themselves.

Painters who do self-portraits are engaging in a form of narcissism. But it doesn't work like that in movies. A truly narcissistic person wouldn't go into filmmaking because it's just too tiring.

For Trump, it's always about Trump and only Trump.

It's no wonder human beings are so narcissistic. The way our ears are constructed, we can hear only what is right next to us or else the internal monologue inside.

I really believe in a oneness. So if I'm looking at somebody else, it's not in a narcissistic way, but you're kind of seeing yourself.

An imbecile is never bored: he contemplates himself.

Meditation is a way to be narcissistic without hurting anyone

Thinking that your story is so interesting that other people will want to listen to it or read it or pay to hear it, that's - what kind of person thinks that? A monster of self-regard. It's not normal thinking.

I wonder if the course of narcissism through the ages would have been any different had Narcissus first peered into a cesspool. He probably did.

I love Dr. Evil [from Austin Powers] as a walking, talking, narcissistic manifestation of everything screwed up about human existence - his desire to take over the world, and have the world reflect his own power lust.

Just drawing back and drawing in; becoming narcissistic.

Most men are so thoroughly subjective that nothing really interests them but themselves.

Narcissus never wrote well nor was a friend.

The idea of narcissism, essentially, is and will be accepted as a virtue.

He is not simply looking into the mirror because he is transfixed by what he sees. Rather, the artist’s success depends as much as anything on his powers of detachment, on de-narcissizing himself… Freud… studied his own dreams not because he was a “narcissist,” but because he was a student of dreams. And whose were at once the least and most accessible of dreams, if not his own?

Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world.

Military tribunals to lock people up the way Lincoln did.

Presidents and Lyndon Johnson was really no exception, very rapidly learned the difference between a contingency plan and an authorized act.

After all, everyone's favorite subject is themselves.

Presidents who restrict civil liberties, even in wartime, are usually judged harshly for it.