John Steinbeck Quotes

In the end I didn't know who I was crying for, but it was something my body wanted to do, as though trying to digest grief.

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

I was a very violent kid. I think movies and writing and art have been a way of channeling this.

We all like stories that make us cry. It's so nice to feel sad when you've nothing in particular to feel sad about.

One often calms one's grief by recounting it.

When you're playing somebody who's going through a lot - frustration and hardship - you're just purging all your emotions, and it feels really good to do that.

Forgive me, but what is the purpose of drama but catharsis?

Horror serves a cathartic role in human society, all throughout the world. It is a way of confronting the darkness, both within and without.

I just put my anger and resentment into basketball. Even the stuff from my childhood.

You go to someone and you think, 'I'll tell him this.' But why? The impulse is that the telling is going to relieve you. And that's why you feel awful later--you've relieved yourself, and if it truly is tragic and awful, it's not better, it's worse---the exhibitionism inherent to a confession has only made the misery worse.

Talk to me about sadness. I talk about it too much in my own head but I never mind others talking about it either; I occasionally feel like I tremendously need others to talk about it as well.

It's important for someone who's dealt with violence to be able to talk to someone, no matter who it is. So I'm vocal about how I feel. That's how I've worked through a lot of my problems.

When I really need it, talking is the best way to deal with emotional pain.

One reason writers write is out of revenge. Life hurts; certain ideas and experiences hurt; one wants to clarify, to set out illuminations, to replay the old bad scenes and get the Treppenworte said -- the words one didn't have the strength or ripeness to say when those words were necessary for one's dignity or survival.

She needed to talk, she needed to cry, she needed to vent all her frustrations and disappointments.

I cried until my eyes swelled shut, and then I slept, a black, dreamless sleep from which I awoke amazingly refreshed, at least until I remembered.

Laughing and crying, you know it's the same release.

You slammed my face down on the barbecue grill, now my scars are all healing, but my heart never will.

Revenge is good. I think revenge is healthy too, and if you can use music in that way, a sort of therapeutic way for yourself, it can't do any harm. So if King (For A Day... Fool For A Lifetime) is angry in any way, it's angry in a random, chaotic, healthy way. Like the guy who goes into a building, shoots a bunch of holes in the wall and then leaves. He didn't kill anybody.

By taking the time to explore charged memories in therapy we might uncover feelings that have been buried for decades.

As long as movies are depressing, life isn't.

What if people really did that - sent their love through the mail to get rid of it? What would it be that they sent? A box of chocolates with centers like the yolks of turkey eggs. A mud doll with hollow eye sockets. A heap of roses slightly more fragrant than rotten. A package wrapped in bloody newspaper that nobody would want to open.

Comedy distances pain, but leaves signs of it everywhere.

The best advice my mom ever gave me was that you have to talk about your emotions. If something upsets me, she'd say, 'Get mad about it; it's healthy for you,' and I could feel like: Good; now it's over...next!

All these feelings need to be felt. We need to stomp and storm; to sob and cry; to perspire and tremble.