Bessel van der Kolk Quotes
In the culture people talk about trauma as an event that happened a long time ago. But what trauma is, is the imprints that event has left on your mind and in your sensations... the discomfort you feel and the agitation you feel and the rage and the helplessness you feel right now.

Quotes to Explore
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I can work in films as long as the story doesn't have a realistic nature. If I'm working with an allegory, a fantasy, it can be developed in synthetic terms.
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All I know is stars and hits, you know what I mean? I don't just sign a guy because he has a hot record. I sign a guy because he's a star. He's a pillar of the community.
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It's not like I ever sat in my room and said I was going to start a media company and become an editor in chief. It was never my dream. It was something that just happened.
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In argument, truth always prevails finally; in politics, falsehood always.
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The good name of the United Nations is one of its most valuable assets - but also one of its most vulnerable. The Charter calls on staff to uphold the highest levels of efficiency, competence and integrity, and I will seek to ensure to build a solid reputation for living up to that standard.
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The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
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We think of Washington as the defensive-minded pragmatist who won the Revolution by avoiding unnecessary risks on the battlefield. But that was not how he started out.
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For me, visuals are as important as the music. I just love escapism and giving people something to escape to. To me, that's what art is.
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I've heard people say South Africans are arrogant, that they act no differently from their colonial masters. That needs to change. It's in your business interest as an entrepreneur to form meaningful partnerships. That's how you do well for your shareholders.
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I pretty much preach, teach and nag.
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I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens.
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If man was the relative of animals, then animals were the relatives of man, and in degrees bearers of that inwardness of which man, the most advanced of their kin, is conscious in himself.
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In my first book, Under Fire, I wrote that I revered Ronald Reagan. That was a dozen years ago. I still feel that way. I think he changed the world for the better for my children and my children's children.
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I was brought up by great parents and great grandparents who told me, 'Never, ever think that you're better than anyone else or that what you do is so important that the world won't miss you once you're gone,' and I kind of translate that into the stardom thing.
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The threat is desertification. My response is a sandstone wall made from solidified sand.
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Whoever sincerely believes that elevated and distant goals are as little use to man as a cow, that 'all of our problems' come from such goals, is left to eat, drink, sleep, or, when he gets sick of that, to run up to a chest and smash his forehead on its corner.
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I try to be outraged by things that other people are just very accepting of, as though they're normal and can't be changed. A lot of what I write about is, 'Hey, you know, this stuff is really awful, and it doesn't need to be, and that's why it's so offensive.' Things should be better.
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When you think of Canada, you think of hockey and you think of Wayne Gretzky.
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Historic Amsterdam, that old part you first see when you turn up at Centraal Station, may have its monuments, but it's also the most tawdry and overcrowded part of the city.
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Having your book edited is like watching your cat being operated on. It's uncomfortable and someone is probably going to get hurt. Most likely the cat. But in the end, things work out for the best and your cat is better it. And then your cat gets released in hardcover, and you have to read all of his reviews.
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Life is a series of sensations connected to different states of consciousness
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I call it fan fatigue. I went to see Bob Dylan last year, who I think is absolutely incredible, but he suffers from his audience.
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In the culture people talk about trauma as an event that happened a long time ago. But what trauma is, is the imprints that event has left on your mind and in your sensations... the discomfort you feel and the agitation you feel and the rage and the helplessness you feel right now.