Dan Brown Quotes

I have a very highly developed sense of denial.

My first line of defense against reality is called sleep.

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

My personal feeling is that human beings have this incredible capacity for denial.

Denial is much more then an Egyptian River.

As a journalist, it is so easy to get hardened when you see so many stories that are disturbing. Sometimes it's just your survival mechanism that makes you hardened to some of it.

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

The idea of evil is always subject to denial as a coping mechanism.

Denial is a very powerful thing.

I'm very good at denial.

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.

The heartbreaking necessity of lying about reality and the heartbreaking impossibilty of lying about it

The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure.

Many years later, a psychiatrist friend of mine said something to us. He said, "Respect denial." It's a powerful force.

Denial, perhaps, is a necessary human mechanism to cope with the heartaches of life.

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead.

We can distance ourselves from the reality of what we did through storytelling.

Self-deception is sometimes as necessary a tool as a crowbar.

The problem is that this speeded-up life and stress in America causes us to cut off our feelings, so we are out of touch with our reality.

We have to lie to ourselves to live. Otherwise, we'd go crazy.

It is natural to man to indulge in the illusion of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, till she transforms us into beasts.

If I behave as though this is a completely normal situation, then maybe it will be.

Insanity is arguing with reality.

I have an investment in not being crazy. I have a real investment in seeing things straight. This runs counter to that investment, so it required giving up an idea of myself, the idea being that I had control.

When pressure builds up, don't panic. Pray! Prayer is a tremendous stress reliever. It can be your safety valve.