Jennifer Egan Quotes

I learned from my parents to do my best to not react to negative emotions. I try to think about what has happened and find the lessons that can be learned from these difficult experiences. I try to deal with these negative emotions right away because, if they stay inside, they can hurt and do a lot of damage. I release them as soon as possible so I can be free.

I don't like to show my emotions at the board, not because they might give something away to an opponent, but because that's my style: I like to keep it to myself.

We are not a victim of our emotions or thoughts. We can understand our triggers and use them as tools to help us respond more objectively.

When I have the urge to get back to coaching, I lie down and wait until it passes.

I can't let my frustration get the best of me.

The problem is not what other people think, do or say; it is your reaction.

If you can't control what you think, you will not be able to control what you do.

The event is not what you should be working on. You should be working on your response or reaction to an event. You either react to it - that means you become victimized, and you say this thing is happening to you - or you respond to it and say the solution must come through you - that's where you stay focused, not on the rightness, wrongness, fairness of the event, but on the appropriateness of your response.

Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion.

I don't know if there's a lot of patience anymore. I think that could serve a lot of people.

Emotion can be the enemy, if you give into your emotion, you lose yourself. You must be at one with your emotion, because the body always follows the mind.

You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.

I like to think I'm calm. Sometimes I have arrived at the ground in the morning in a bad mood - you're not always going to be in the best of moods are you? - but by the time you get into the ground and you have a brew then it's normally fine.

You either control your mind or it controls you.

Hesitation is the best cure for anger. The first blows of anger are heavy, but if it waits, it will think again.

I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment: but rallying my wits, and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to order; and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder-how I cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester's movements a matter in which I had any cause to take vital interest.

As you go through life, don’t let your feelings-real as they are-invalidate your need to let the truth of God’s words guide your thinking. Remember that the path to your heart travels through your mind. Truth matters.

Despite not knowing if what he felt from moment to moment would pass or last forever, he entered fully into his shifting states of violent rage, self-pity, longing, heartbreak, cynicism, without losing the ability to think about what was happening to him. That took courage, I thought, living with the suffering in a mindful way, as an artifact of being, neither good nor bad.

Today I will be the master of my emotions.

Perhaps the way with any obsession is to ignore it simply. Not to fight it, since it draws strength from any contact with us, whether hostile or friendly.

Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, "Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?" neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility. . . .

Any man who can't control his thoughts can't control his actions, and any man who can't control his actions isn't safe in society.

We have consciousness and rational powers but unless you're willing to spend the time to gain control of yourself, gain control of your emotions, to think deeply about what you want in a year or two, or where you want your business to be, you're going to be swept away by every new event that occurs in the course of the day or the week and the small amount of time that you plan, that you address to conscious planning, is never enough to overcome the constant tide of emotions and new things happening.

Whatever happens in your life, joyful or painful, do not be swept away by reactivity. Be patient with yourself and don't lose your sense of perspective.