Louis Nizer Quotes

You know the problem, we don't want to believe what we know.

Some people have a difficult time facing truth and reality. They prefer to live in a make-believe world, pretending that certain things aren't happening.

Where belief is painful we are slow to believe.

A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one’s own mind.

I'm very good at denial.

If someone has gone through a lot of emotional pain, including the loss of loved ones, that person may try to build a shell around his or her feelings to protect him- or herself from the pain.

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

But when a man suspects any wrong it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me. I said nothing and tried to think nothing.

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

Never face facts; if you do you'll never get up in the morning.

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

Sometimes, America, when something's too bad, we don't want to look at it. We want to turn our head.

Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.

As a kid, I would push my shoulders forward in order to hide my heart from being hurt.

Some people choose not to believe the truth because it disagrees with what they fundamentally want.

The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.

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.

Many people find bald, unvarnished truths so disturbing, they prefer to ram their heads in the sand and start dreaming at the first sign of scientific reality.

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.

I cover my face with my arms because this isn't happening. It isn't possible. For someone to make Peeta forget he loves me . . . no one can do that.

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

Sometimes people need to lie to themselves most of all.

In no way did I allow reality as it was to intrude on reality as I wanted it to be.

Like the ostrich, head under wingWhen the roaring storm breaks,So many people take refugeUnder the soft pillowOf specious arguments.

Realize that the surface personality has no interest in anything which might disturb its darling delusions.