Irvin D. Yalom Quotes

The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.

Whenever I'm trying to understand people that I don't understand, or things in people or even in myself, I'll say, 'When did this negativity get here?' I try to think back to how I was raised to deal with things, and then consider how the person that I'm dealing with grew up.

Let's teach boys at school the personally and economically valuable skills of self-expression and emotional intelligence, of mediation and problem-solving.

I want children who can make eye contact. I want children who know how to resolve conflicts with their peers. I want children who understand the dynamics of interpersonal relationships that are physical and tactile. I do not want children that only know how to interface with the world through a screen.

I don't know how you can understand other people or yourself if you haven't read a lot of books. I just don't think you're equipped to deal with the demands and decisions of life, particularly in your dealings with other people.

If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.

I consider social skills a bit like learning a language. I've been practising it for so long over so many years I've almost lost my accent.

I took a psychology class, and I think the study of the mind can help me further my acting ability. It's also taught me about getting into an environment with new people and acting like you've known them forever.

Most mental health professionals, including clinicians and researchers, endorse the deficit theory. They're convinced that we wage war simply because we don't know how to make love. We desperately want loving, satisfying relationships but lack the skills we need to develop them.

I don't think any one person is the cause of all of someone else's problems.

I'm a complete human being. I'm very emotional and loving. I feel, I hurt, I give, I take, and also I think. I analyze. I'm a sociologist, anthropologist.

I like to think I'm a listener, and I'm fascinated by observing people - I suppose you just lock that in.

I started writing a journal, and I was learning so much along the way. How to deal with your family, how to deal with your friends.

I remember how to be a person by being around them.

I believe you learn social skills by mixing with people.

I don't like getting people upset, so that's not my goal. But I like putting people in situations where how they respond says a lot about them.

I didn't know how to get along with others. I didn't even know how to be in the same room with other people. Then, after a while, you learn.

I take time to be with people, and I learn a lot.

I was forced, more or less, to go to anger management. I was either going to make myself and everyone around me miserable, or I was going to realize that there's more than one person on this Earth. It definitely has made me a better person.

I studied psychology in school, and I learned how to understand people's feelings, how to get along with people and relate to people.

I was a little bit of a loner, but fascinated with emotions that people feel.

My agenda... is to learn about people.

The way a man looks at himself in a mirror will tell you if he can ever care about anyone else.

We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.

The main condition for the achievement of love is the overcoming of one's narcissism. The narcissistic orientation is one in which one experiences as real only that which exists within oneself, while the phenomena in the outside world have no reality in themselves, but are experienced only from the viewpoint of their being useful or dangerous to one. The opposite pole to narcissism is objectivity; it is the faculty to see other people and things as they are, objectively, and to be able to separate this objective picture from a picture which is formed by one's desires and fears.