Eric Berne Quotes

A healthy person goes 'Yes,' 'No,' and 'Whoopee!' An unhealthy person goes 'Yes, but,' 'No, but,' and 'No whoopee.'

Eric Berne

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• For some small number of people, a parental loss appears to be, ultimately, a desirable difficulty - again, not a large number.

  

  Malcolm Gladwell
  • People
  • Small
  • Loss

• Each book tends to have its own identity rather than the author's. It speaks from itself rather than you. Each book is unlike the others because you are not bringing the same voice to every book. I think that keeps you alive as a writer.

  

  E. L. Doctorow
  • Book
  • Voice
  • Identity

• Life yields only to the conqueror. Never accept what can be gained by giving in. You will be living off stolen goods, and your muscles will atrophy.

  

  Dag Hammarskjold
  • Life
  • Giving
  • Living

• I learned from different guys I played with, too. The key was probably three people: The good Lord, the offensive linemen I played with and great fullbacks that could block very well.

  

  Earl Campbell
  • People
  • Good
  • Great

• Style is not something applied. It is something that permeates. It is of the nature of that in which it is found, whether the poem, the manner of a god, the bearing of a man. It is not a dress.

  

  Wallace Stevens
  • God
  • Nature
  • Man

• Buying found objects means repurposing something that was already made years before, sometimes decades before. It strikes a nice balance between the new and used equation we should strive for in our lives.

  

  Nate Berkus
  • Nice
  • Sometimes
  • Balance

• Americans detest all lies except lies spoken in public or printed lies.

  

  E. W. Howe
  • Lies
  • Public
  • Spoken

• The very first tournament I watched is the U.S. Open when I was 13. And that was the year Juli Inkster won.

  

  Yani Tseng
  • First
  • Year
  • Open

• I have been further enlightened by the conversation and correspondence of some illustrious Italians, whom I would gladly name, were I not afraid of exposing them to danger.

  

  Edmond About
  • Name
  • Danger
  • Conversation

• Children are the vessels into which adults pour their poison.

  

  Salman Rushdie
  • Children

• All of us have to learn how to invent our lives, make them up, imagine them. We need to be taught these skills; we need guides to show us how. If we don't, our lives get made up for us by other people.

  

  Ursula K. Le Guin
  • People
  • Up

• Foucault, like David Letterman, made smirking glibness an art form.

  

  Camille Paglia
  • Art

• I began to feel lighthearted. Don’t ever do that; it tempts some dark and evil force abroad in the universe.

  

  Tanith Lee
  • Universe
  • Evil
  • Dark

• Cease the bickering! I am indulging the exotic whims of a beautiful princess and must not be distracted.

  

  Jack Vance
  • Beautiful
  • Princess

• Knowledge is theory. We should be thankful if action of management is based on theory. Knowledge has temporal spread. Information is not knowledge. The world is drowning in information but is slow in acquisition of knowledge. There is no substitute for knowledge.

  

  W. Edwards Deming
  • World
  • Knowledge
  • Action

• In defense of the right to...marry whom we please - we might quote some of the basic principles of our government and suggest that in some things individual rights to tastes should control....If a good man from Maryland sees fit to marry a disenfranchised woman from New York, there should be no legal impediments to the union.

  

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton
  • Good
  • Control

• 'No interviews. No panels. No speeches. No comments,' he Wasserman ordered his agents. 'Stay out of the spotlight. It fades your suit.'

  

  Lew Wasserman

• while the shadows like long fingers over the haystacks that sweep past keep shocking him because he is riding backwards.

  

  Anne Carson
  • Long
  • Past

• And that was as far as he got before i heard it. The thumping of footsteps, running up the lawn toward me: It seemed like I could hear it through the grass, like leaning your ear to a railroad track and feeling the train coming, miles away. As the noise got closer I could hear ragged breaths, and then a voice. It was my mother.

  

  Sarah Dessen
  • Mother
  • Running
  • Feelings

• Because I was successful over the years, I never had the opportunity to do the stuff I really wanted.

  

  Rick Derringer
  • Opportunity
  • Wanted
  • Because

• I think I'm a better doctor than I am a husband. I give myself a good grade as a doctor, then the next best grade as a father, and the worst grade as a husband.

  

  Mehmet Oz
  • Good
  • Father
  • Husband

• In fine, the truffle is the very diamond of gastronomy.

  

  Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
  • Fine
  • Diamond
  • Culinary

• Abstractions about right and wrong, whether they are as old as Thou Shalt Not Kill or as modern as Do Your Own Thing, often serve only to confuse and weaken genuine moral decision.

  

  Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Decision
  • Moral

• A healthy person goes 'Yes,' 'No,' and 'Whoopee!' An unhealthy person goes 'Yes, but,' 'No, but,' and 'No whoopee.'

  

  Eric Berne