Psychological Exploration Quotes

If you stare into the Abyss long enough the Abyss stares back at you.

I'm not really sure what the psychology is, but for me, I'm interested in it because it's such a juxtaposition to what is going on in my life with a newborn, as you can see. So because of that juxtaposition I'm really fascinated by it, but I'm equally terrified by it, and I think that diving in it makes me feel safer as a woman and a mother for some reason.

Fiction is nothing less than the subtlest instrument for self-examination and self-display that Mankind has invented yet.

I walked into my own book, seeking peace. It was night, and I made a careless movement inside the dream; I turned too brusquely the corner and I bruised myself against my madness.

All my work is partly biographical. I mean, 'Crash' was absolutely that, absolutely. But you just wouldn't recognize me in most of those characters. But I was in every single one of those characters in 'Crash,' because those were all fears that I had felt. Things that I had thought in my deepest, darkest heart.

On 'Nip/Tuck,' I was a Nazi, so basically for, like, six months. I went into this place where I was wearing a lot of black. Everyone has a dark side, and I can channel that.

One of the most important keys to acting is curiosity. I am curious to the point of being nosy. What that means is you want to devour lives. You're eager to put on their shoes and wear their clothes and have them become a part of you. All people contain mystery, and when you act, you want to plumb that mystery until everything is known to you.

I think it takes an introspective person to want to go into the theater and see the dark side of themselves.

A film based on a jolly good John Grisham book is fine, but I like to get a bit under the skin.

I think everyone should go crazy at least once in their life. I don't think you've truly lived until you've thought about killing yourself.

'Pumped Up Kicks' is written from the perspective like Truman Capote wrote 'In Cold Blood' or Dostoevsky wrote 'Crime & Punishment.' It's psychologically breaking down someone's state of mind and diving in and walking in their shoes.

Every song in 'Groundhog Day' works to forward the story in a chronological, narrative sense, to illuminate the state of mind of the person singing it and comment on the world.

It's very interesting that most of the roles I've gotten are grim, when I'm actually a very well-adjusted man and had a happy upbringing. I guess there are some dark shadows somewhere in there, but I'm a big kid.

The great thing about writing is that...you can do all these antisocial things and you get paid for them and nobody ever arrests you because they're all make-believe. Then that way if you were actually ever driven to do any of those things, the pressure's off because you'd have already written them down. It's therapy.

Diane Arbus is one of the most mysterious, enigmatic, and frighteningly daring artists of the 20th century. Her work emerged from a deeply private place and profoundly affected all those who came into contact with it.

I think that science fiction has a distinct therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate that the world does change. I cannot overemphasize the importance of that idea.

In a dark time, the eye begins to see / I meet my shadow in the deepening shade...Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.

In the late nineties, Katy Grannan began making haunting photographs of people who had extraordinary inner yens to be seen by strangers.

When I prepare for a role, I try to get inside the character's head and understand him.

The messiness [in my books] is nothing like an Atwood novel. For me, the deeper subjects are secrets versus intimacy, and how both beget safety but also threaten it. And there is a lot for me about loss, too.

Music is escapism from the grim realities of life. But then as soon as you escape into the music, from my point of view, I found I had to deal with the very things that I thought I was running away from. I wanted to hit those problems on the head and resolve them. So they didn't remain as issues in my psyche.

I try to dig deep into the well of my subconscious. At a certain moment in that process, the lid is opened and very different ideas and visions are liberated. With those I can start making a film. But maybe it's better that you don't open that lid completely, because if you release your subconscious it becomes really hard to live a social or family life.

To go out of your mind at least once a day is tremendously important. By going out of your mind, you come to your senses.

Artists are the traditional interpreters of dreams and nightmares.

I'm attracted to the extreme light and the extreme dark. I'm interested in the human condition and what makes people tick. I'm interested in the things people try to hide.