Bessel van der Kolk Quotes
The lack of literature on the topic was a handicap, but my great teacher, Elvin Semrad, had taught us to be skeptical about textbooks. We had only one real textbook, he said: our patients. We should trust only what we could learn from them—and from our own experience.
Quotes to Explore
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At school, I'd refuse to take part in biology lessons when animals were being dissected. One time, the teacher announced that we would be gassing worms. So I ran around the room, gathered up all the worms and set them free in the fields. I just loved animals and couldn't bear the thought of them suffering.
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I had a major bug for cities and for paintings and literature and all the things I thought went on in cities.
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It is no exaggeration to say that the English Bible is, next to Shakespeare, the greatest work in English literature, and that it will have much more influence than even Shakespeare upon the written and spoken language of the English race.
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All my life, I've been working with male directors, which I've really enjoyed. And I'm lucky in that I've worked with men who have a lot of respect for women. But working with a woman is a different experience. It feels like the communication is different.
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I have the feeling of being a very small item on this planet, and literature enables me to express that.
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I have to write what I can write, and writing the text of a picture book is like walking a tightrope, if you ramble off... As my friend Julius Lester says, 'A picture book is the essence of an experience.'
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My biggest bits of advice are, write as much as you can, finish what you start, get a thick skin, don't take crap from anyone, but also live your life and have fun. The stereotype of a writer holed up alone all day is really unhelpful. You can't write real people and real emotion if you don't let yourself experience them.
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There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
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In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.
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God cannot be realized through the intellect. Intellect can lead one to a certain extent and no further. It is a matter of faith and experience derived from that faith.
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What really interests me is how a woman who has had a bad experience with a man comes through it and gets a new life. I feel you have to be positive. You have to say, 'Look, okay, he's ditched you, but there's life after.'
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The writing that feels the best to me, I experience sometimes, is a kind of weirdly deep listening - like, it feels like if you just listen hard enough, the next sentence will tell you what it needs to be.
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Shooting at Coco Chanel's apartment was an unexpectedly absorbing experience. The essence of Chanel is firmly rooted there in all of her possessions, and I truly believe that her spirit and soul still inhabit the second floor.
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My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed... And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is.
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I still remember asking my high school guidance teacher for permission to take a second year of algebra instead of a fifth year of Latin. She looked down her nose at me and sneered, 'What lady would take mathematics instead of Latin?'
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Don't squander beautiful moments by always trying to snap the perfect picture or record the event on film. Sometimes it's better to watch things as they happen with your own eyes, knowing that the memory of the experience will always be with you.
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I write for children because I am interested in fantasy and the possibilities for experience of all kinds before the time of compromise. I believe that children are far more perceptive and wise than American books give them credit for being.
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If I'm made to pick one transcendent reading experience, then it was listening to Miss Sarzin as - if we'd been very, very good - she read the next chapter of 'The Hobbit' aloud to us.
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I founded a club, which is called the Brutally Early Club. It's basically a breakfast salon for the 21st century where art meets science meets architecture meets literature.
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A massive amount of quantity with a deliberate focus on improvement leads to the knowledge and experience of how to make quality.
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He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.
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Every time you feel entitled, you're making a mistake.
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People cain't help being what they are any more than a skunk can help being a skunk. Don't you think if they had their choice they would rather be something else? Sure they would. People are just weak.
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The lack of literature on the topic was a handicap, but my great teacher, Elvin Semrad, had taught us to be skeptical about textbooks. We had only one real textbook, he said: our patients. We should trust only what we could learn from them—and from our own experience.
