Ryan Reynolds Quotes

Sometimes when things are way too big and I can't control it, I do sort of a weird thing where I kind of check out a little bit. It's all about self-preservation for me.

If we didn't desensitize ourselves in some way, every day would feel like its own tragedy.

I'm a natural compartmentalizer.

Characters who experience great trauma will sometimes create an escape.

Focusing on one mildly disturbing, semi-controllable issue allows the mind to stuff much greater terrors in relatively tidy packages.

I try to cope with everything through humor.

'Johnny' was a coping mechanism who could take those things which could have ordinarily destroyed me, by tweaking my past and throwing it back out there, getting laughs from things that would have otherwise upset me.

Denial is not always a bad thing. Without it, you couldn't function. For instance, if you were hyperaware and hypervigilant regarding all the dangers in the world - from driving your car to crossing the street to eating food that might have contaminants in it to taking medications that have many side effects, etc. - you would become frozen.

When the pressures really mount, the neurotic must choose: Shall he have a good cry, or set fire to his neighbor's house?

It is when we lose control that we repress the emotions, not when we are in control.

When I was younger, I was reticent to be vulnerable on camera and everything I was doing was just a really finely honed defense mechanism from when I was a kid, and I was now using this to make a living on camera.

My mom is one of those really angry moms who gets mad at absolutely everything. Once when I was a little kid, I accidentally knocked a Flintstones glass off the kitchen table. She said, 'Well, dammit, we can't have nice things.'

When I've had a meltdown, people will say to me, "Well, you failed to keep your sense of humor."

I think it became blurry because I grew up in a very private family. I mixed privacy and secrecy up somewhere along the line. Everything became a secret, and I thought that was how you should live. Lying about everything. The mask I put on as a kid to survive was the funny lady. Then the funny person all of a sudden became harder to do without substances. Substances let me keep the mask on longer. Until it doesn't work anymore and you're just a mess.

My manners have always been the first thing to go when I get upset, and some people say that they stopped coming back a long time ago.​

Though she doesn't remember any trauma, she said that her parents told her she cried on a daily basis and her grandmother resorted to passing out candy so the kids would play with her. Though it was a humorous moment, Mila said, "I know, God bless her. She's an amazing, amazing woman."

If I had a nervous breakdown every time something awful happened in the world, I'd be crazier than a shithouse rat.

That afternoon I came to understand that one of the deepest purposes of intellectual sophistication is to provide distance between us and our most disturbing personal truths and gnawing fears.

Your father leaving your family, that's your bedrock for all your future relationships and that's your security when you're a kid.

Most people have two emergency modes. Fight and Flight. But Conner always knew he had three. Fight, Flight, and Screw Up Royally.

For thirty years now, in times of stress and strain, when something has me backed against the wall and I'm ready to do something really stupid with my anger, a sorrowful face appears in my mind and asks... "Problem or inconvenience?" I think of this as the Wollman Test of Reality. Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference.

Well, you can’t control what they do, but you can control how you respond to it…whether you allow it to drive you crazy, or occupy all of your thoughts, or whether you note what they’re doing, consider it, and make a conscious decision as to how much you’ll let it affect you

I won't think of it now. I can't stand it now. I'll think of it later.

My theory is that the world is a difficult place to live in and distraction is the name of the game.

My father lead by fear. I did what my father said ‘cause I was scared of getting my ass beat. His voice rang so vividly in my head. That it was just…a fear.