Lydia Davis Quotes

It's not what people do to us that hurts us. In the most fundamental sense, it is our chosen response to what they do to us that hurts us.

The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you.

I think the way we react to things is a big indicator of our character and what type of person we are.

I tend to take things personally. But I can only take so much, and then I jump back. I have strong survival skills.

I adapt to things quickly, including good things, which I wish I could shut off sometimes.

My intellect has always been more responsible than my emotions for how I respond to the world.

Life unravels the way it does, and it has an effect on you, but you have to take responsibility for dealing with it.

I am an addictive personality.

When we are fully conscious and aware, we actually know when we are about to overreact. When we are mindful, we have the mental space and are aware of when our moods change. When we are mindful, we are aware of when our mental models are being challenged and when expectation does not meet with reality, which can trigger an emotional response.

When you are angry or frustrated, what comes out? Whatever it is, it's a good indication of what you're made of.

Making better choices takes work. There is a daily give and take, but it is worth the effort.

Everybody kind of perceives me as being angry. It's not anger, it's motivation.

Fear is a driving force for most of the things that I do. I don't know if that's healthy.

Fear is the enemy. I distrust it. Any feeling or decision I make that might be motivated by fear I quickly reassess.

We're all addicted to sort of the habits of our lives. And we get stuck, and sometimes we'll get stuck because we had traumas that we don't want to remember.

I've always had an addictive nature.

There are always reasons for people's behaviour, and it's easy just to dismiss them and assume that we already know their story, especially if they're no good at showing their emotions. Life gives you all these knocks, it's so easy to form a shell to protect yourself. I've done it myself.

We may think there is willpower involved, but more likely... change is due to want power. Wanting the new addiction more than the old one. Wanting the new me in preference to the person I am now.

My number one thing to work on is not being reactive - but appropriateness doesn't come easily to me sometimes.

If you're playing the character, you could say to yourself in 16 different ways, What if that didn't bother me? What if I knew exactly what he was talking about? What if I didn't get excited?

You can't be responsible for the way people respond to you. You're only responsible for yourself.

All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible

The heart of change is in the emotions…. We see, we feel, we change.

What's wrong with being angry? There's a lot of stuff to be angry about. If you're angry, anger covers pain. I don't know if you can truly deal with pain.

I've never acted fully impulsively. I think with my mind and my heart.