David Benioff Quotes

We have developed this unbelievable ability to deny. We have to. If we didn't, we'd go crazy.

I'm someone who lived in a war for five years. I received bombs on my head every day of my childhood. Did that stop me from living? Did that stop me from laughing?

I have almost never written about my experience as a soldier on the battlefield, because I tried, and I found that it is beyond my capacity to describe the battlefield. The battlefield consists mostly of smells, and it is very difficult to describe smells in words - very difficult indeed.

Denial is huge for any alcoholic, especially for a functioning alcoholic, because I - you know, I'm not living under a bridge. I haven't been arrested.

I'm very good at denial.

'Closure' is the word used for a loss that's not acknowledged - and the habit this causes, physically and mentally, for anybody who is participating in that.

I sat there in awe that some guy overseas, trying to protect our interests, was using a silly comedy as a survival tool. My brain had an explosion. I was really moved by that.

Victims don't want to know they're victims. I guess that's just victim psychology: if you don't know about it, it's not really happening.

I pretended to be super-cool and not be bothered by things and play off any kind of heartache when I was younger, for sure.

No one escapes from a war. No one. Not even the survivors. You accept things that would appall you at any other time because life has temporarily lost all meaning.

Obviously I wasn't playing well at the time. But as a player, you lie to yourself. You say, "There's nothing wrong. I'm just not on time [at the plate]." You make something else up because pain is not an option.

It is so much simpler to bury reality than it is to dispose of dreams

I convinced myself I hadn't seen anything, ... I had done this many times before ... I was adept at erasing reality.

All I can do is stand still- I feel like if I just stand still, I can stop it from being true, I can pretend that everything is all right.

That's maybe the reason he does so many things so that he will not have to think .

I'm not searching for the truth.That's too much pressure .

He entertained these thoughts awkwardly, as a man entertains unexpected guests. Then, as he reached his objective, he pushed these thoughts away, as a man apologizes to his guests, and leaves them, muttering something about a prior engagement.

Hold it, Doc, a world war passed through my brain. He said, Nurse, get your pad, this boy's insane.

How can we not create a fantasy in our minds when the reality is so hard?

Sometimes, you gotta believe something crazy. Because all the other things you could believe hurt too much.

I drink to stay warm, and to kill selected memories

The only thing he could do to stay alive was not to allow himself the anguish of that memory. He erased it from his mind, although from time to time in the years that were left to him he would feel it revive, with no warning and for no reason, like the sudden pang of an old scar.

Most people cant' deal with reality, but indulge heavily in fantasy and fear.

But sometimes living in denial was the only way to keep a man from going on a killing spree.

Denial can be a pathology or a survival mechanism - and sometimes it's both.