Bessel van der Kolk Quotes
As long as a memory is inaccessible, the mind is unable to change it. But as soon as a story starts being told, particularly if it is told repeatedly, it changes – the act of telling itself changes the tale. The mind cannot help but make meaning out of what it knows, and the meaning we make of our lives changes how and what we remember.
Quotes to Explore
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I've always enjoyed poor health.
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I don't hurt or want for visibility, but people seem to forget pretty easily.
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Doctors cannot afford to provide care at the rate of reimbursement that Medicare insists that they accept.
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I'm not a control freak.
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I didn't volunteer; they asked me. I felt a duty to testify.
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Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.
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I think when I first straightened my hair, I was a teenager. I don't believe that I was consciously doing it to look white or to be on television. It never crossed my mind. All of the girls in my neighborhood got perms and their hair straightened. But I know that historically it was to assimilate and there are some people who do it for that reason.
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A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.
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To me there is no picture so beautiful as smiling, bright-eyed, happy children; no music so sweet as their clear and ringing laughter.
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Everybody likes a compliment.
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I'm getting better, happier, and nicer as I grow older, so I would be terrific in a couple of hundred years time.
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All peoples have evolved extraordinarily precise ways of settling issues about the things that matter to them.
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Stardom is only a by-product of acting. I don't think being a movie star is a good enough reason for existing.
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I liked St. Louis, when they were in the American League, because that was going home. I had all my family and friends there.
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Just as the Supreme Court has said that women have the right to choose whether or not to be parents, men should also have that right.
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Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders.
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I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.
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I'm not terribly confrontational, but I've gotten better at holding my ground.
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Publication is to thinking as childbirth is to the first kiss.
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Of course I am tough, but I am smart, too. I'm more smart than tough. People watching my record and say that this guy is tough. This is not about tough; this is about mind. You think when you fight. This is about everything.
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It's good to be finally able to afford food for a change. It's good to move on from potatoes and tin soup.
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I never think of myself as any kind of sex symbol, but I get letters from all over, all sorts. It's really cool. I get a lot from inmates, which is kind of scary. But the best was the guy who wanted to send me a plane ticket to fly me to his prom.
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One guy wins and one guy loses, but it's not entirely up to him. Our sport is so crazy that on any given Sunday, anybody can win. You can run the same race over and over five times, and you'll probably get five different winners. It's wild.
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As long as a memory is inaccessible, the mind is unable to change it. But as soon as a story starts being told, particularly if it is told repeatedly, it changes – the act of telling itself changes the tale. The mind cannot help but make meaning out of what it knows, and the meaning we make of our lives changes how and what we remember.
