top of page
📖
p.15 - “Along the way, they teach us to respect people in authority rather than imagine that - in a rather inspiring sense - in a great many fields, no one actually knows exactly what's going on [...] They teach us everything other than the two skills that in many ways decisively determine the quality of adult life: knowing how to choose the right job for ourselves and knowing how to form satisfactory relationships".
p.16 - “We need to be outwardly obedient and inwardly discerning. What we need to do is to remember properly to leave school. [...] Yet many of us in fact don't manage to leave at that point at all. In a deep part of our minds, we may linger long into adulthood, not in a classroom precisely, but in terms of how our minds work, caged within the confines of a school-based worldview, generating immense and unnecessary degrees of unhappiness and compromise in the process [...] All the while, school teaches us that authority is benign, that ‘they' (those who know, the machine, the big people) want what is good for us and speak on behalf of our long-term interests: ‘We'll look after you. If you follow our rules, you will thrive. The exam (and all its successors) are fundamentally accurate. They, those who know, have worked out the ultimate test of your value. You are what you score."
p.17 - “[...] there is no guarantee of a path to fulfilment laid out by authority figures. They don't know. No one knows (thankfully). The safe path may be entirely dangerous to our flourishing."
p.19 - “When we first arrive on the earth, nothing is more alien to our minds than the idea of needing permission to do something."
p.21 - “We're no longer the infant who just popped everything interesting into its mouth and smiled. Now we look around and wonder: is this OK? And generally we cease to wonder very much. We simply assume it's probably not. Even in the absence of active prohibition, we stifle our impulses. We internalise those millions of no's. Being a good adult. becomes synonymous with waging a war on our wants. We get good at being patient. We develop guilt about our desires. We are aware of how much our needs might hurt others. [...] We imagine that most of what already exists defines what is sensible and plausible; if it hasn't happened by now, there must be very good reasons why it shouldn't in the future. We're careful not to hurry, even if we do have a goal in mind. Far better to wait a decade or two rather than risk any sort of rash move..."
p.23 - “The reason why certain ideas haven't happened isn't necessarily because they are implausible, but because there is a strong and always surprising lack of originality in human conduct. We are creatures of tradition. That it doesn't exist isn't a sign that it can't or shouldn't, just that everyone is as much waiting for permission as we are."
p.27 - “We tend to begin our lives with a deeply unpresentative experience: that of being surrounded by people who care an extraordinary extent, about us."
p.28 - “Then, of course, we grow up and are inducted into a horrific reality: we exist in a world of astonishing indifference to almost everything we are, think, say or do."
p.31 - “[...] to pretty much the rest of the world, we are the very same sort of strangers or casual acquaintances that we know and deal with in our own daily experience. Here the results can be surprsing. Imagine that we're in a lift standing next to someone on our way to the twentieth floor. In their mind, they know we disapprove of their choice of jacket. They know they should have picked another one and that they look silly and pinched in this one. In truth, we haven't noticed the jacket. In fact, we haven't noticed that they were born - or that one day they will die. We're just worrying about how our partner responded when we mentioned our mother's cold to them last night."
p.34 - “We shouldn't merely suffer from being ignored, we should also accept the liberation that comes from being overlooked [...] We may fail, but we can believe with new certainty that almost no one will give a damn if we do, an idea that may - above anything else - contibute to our success (about which, as we now know, no one will much notice or care anyway). "
p.37 - “As we reach adulthood, a benign version of our instinctive deference shows up in our willingness to trust experts. [...] On a whole range of technical and scientific matters, we surrender scepticism to others, without having any independent ability to check the evidence or master the intricacies of the arguments. They know - and we're happy to assume they must. Yet much that goes wrong in our lives can be traced back to an extension of this form of deference to areas where it doesn't naturally belong and where it stymies our questions and interpretation of our needs."
p.59 - “When we entertain impressive people we don't know too well, we may end up coming across as stiff and over-polite, because we don't dare to reveal any of the more playful and light-hearted sides of our characters, which we persuade ourselves can't exist in a higher-status individual. To correct such unnecessary notions, we should dare to assume similarity even where and when there appears to be rather little evidence for it. Whatever the risks of flattening others' uniqueness, there is an equal risk in believing too strongly in our own singularity. On occasion, we should tread across the perceived gulf that seperates us from the rest of humanity and simply guess that, probably, the other person is as bored as we are, or would quite like to have a laugh as much as we would. Or that they are as nervous as we have been - or as much in need of a friend."
p.87-88-89 “[...] So mindful are we of the risks of selfishness that we run into an opposite danger: an abnegation of the self, a modesty that borders on self-erasure, an automatic impulse to give everything over to competing parties, a shyness about pressing ourselves forward and a manic inability to say ‘no' or cause the slightest frustration to others. [...] Then one morning we wake up and find that the bulk of our life is already behind us, that our best years were spent and that no one is especially grateful for our sacrifices, that there isn't a reward in heaven for our renunciations and that we are furious with ourselves for mistaking meekness and self-surrender for kindness. [...] The very word may be frightening, because we aren't taught to distinguish - as we must - between bad and good versions of this trait; between, on the one hand, the kind of selfishness that viciously exploits and reduces others, that operates with no higher end in view, that disregards people out of meanness and negligence, and on the other hand, the kind of selfishness that we require to get anything substantial done, that lends us the courage to prioritise our own concerns over the flotsam and jetsam of daily life, that lends us the spirit to be more forthright about our interests with people who claim to love us - and that at moments leads us to sidestep nagging demands not in order to make people suffer, but so that we can husband our resources, and, in time, be able to serve the world in the best way we can."
p. 119 - « Le simple énoncé des évènements passés acquiert un effet de régulation affective, de communication euphorique si l'on partage les mêmes souvenirs [...] On éprouve une tendresse pour ceux avec qui on a partagé les mêmes épreuves. »
p. 134 - « [...] un beau parleur saura trouver les mots qui transforment la nausée cafardeuse de la mort bête en une épopée glorieuse qui n'a de sens que dans le récit. Ce faux témoin est adoré parce qu'il nous fait du bien en nous permettant de supporter le réel qu'il transfigure. »
p. 137 - « Nos souvenirs sont nécessaires pour construire notre identité narrative, nos oublis nous aident à donner cohérence au récit autobiographique, à ne pas trop souffrir ni entretenir la haine. »
p. 141 - « [...] l'ennemi de la vérité, ce n'est pas le mensonge, c'est le mythe! Nous nous méfions des mensonges et cherchons à les repérer, alors que nous adorons les mythes et demandons à nous y soumettre. »
p. 142 - « Puisque nous savons aujourd'hui que la mémoire est liée à l'émotion, cette donnée expérimentale implique que nous mettons en souvenirs des relations bien plus que des évènements. [...] Les moments amoureux et les évènements effrayants deviennent alors les clés de voûte de notre édifice biographique. Nous donnons à ceux qui nous affectent le pouvoir de nous marquer. »
p. 143- « Quand par malheur une victime raconte qu'elle a pu s'en sortir et triompher de son épreuve, elle est aussitôt accusée de déni, ou d'arrangement avec l'agresseur, parce qu'elle brise le plaisir de se soumettre au mythe. »
p. 149- « L'effet papillon de la parole s'ajoute à l'identité narrative pour nous contraindre au récit [...] le simple fait de se préparer à parler allège la sensation que nous éprouvons de notre propre corps. »
p. 152 - « La perte de la parole modifie la représentation du monde. Le malade redevient contextuel quand il ne peut plus évoquer l'ailleurs. Le sentiment de soi redevient proximal, collant au contexte sensoriel: sans paroles, mon corps redevient viande. »
p. 154 - « Tous les parleurs qui, au cours des millénaires, ont mis au point ce mot, pensaient déjà à la fonction protectrice du secret. L'âme d'un enfant est mieux protégée par le silence que par les explications qui voudraient le défendre. »
p. 162 - 163 - « [...] les proches des traumatisés dont ils partagent les émotions et dont ils éprouvent les souffrance sont souvent plus altérés que les blessés eux-mêmes [...] Le paradoxe de cette impressionnante découverte, c'est que le traumatisé est biologiquement mieux préparé au stress comme un champion entraîné à répondre aux épreuves. [...] Quant au proche du traumatisé, il s'attache à un champion vulnérable dont émane une fièvre émotionnelle qui imprègne ceux qui l'aiment. Le proche du blessé reçoit un stress sans visage, une agression sans forme qui vient de la personne d'attachement. [...] Il ne sait pas contre quoi se défendre, puisqu'il a l'impression que le mal vient de lui-même et sûrement pas de ceux qui l'aiment [...] Plusieurs milliers de jumeaux identiques ont été envoyés faire la guerre au Viêt-nam. [...] le jumeau qui n'a pas subi l'évènement traumatisant en souffre beaucoup plus que celui qui a dû l'affronter. »
p. 167 - « Beaucoup d'enfants maltraités, dans l'instant même où ils reçoivent les coups et les humiliations, méprisent leur mère qui ne sait pas se contrôler. Mais quand ils révèlent la maltraitance à des adultes bienpensants qui poussent des cris d'horreur ou se délectent du récit de sa souffrance, l'enfant éprouve non seulement la honte de ne pas avoir une mère comme les autres, mais il se sent coupable de devenir à son tour l'agresseur, semblable à l'agresseur qu'il méprise. L'aveu se transforme alors en faute, et l'enfant se punit d'avoir fait punir sa mère. »
p. 169 - « Il ne suffit pas de dire son malheur pour que tout soit réglé. La réaction de celui qui entend le secret imprègne un sentiment dans le psychisme de celui qui se confie. C'est pourquoi le secret révélé peut aussi bien provoquer un soulagement qu'une torture. »
p. 178 - « L'écriture rassemble en une seule activité le maximum de mécanismes de défense: l'intellectualisation, la rêverie, la rationalisation et la sublimation. Elle permet en même temps de s'affirmer, de s'identifier, de s'inscrire dans une lignée glorieuse et surtout de se faire accepter tel qu'on est, avec sa blessure, car tout écrivain s'adresse au lecteur idéal. »
p. 183 - « [...] on devient adulte le jour où l'on fait ce qu'on a envie de faire, même si ça fait plaisir à nos parents » dit Paul Watzlawick.
bottom of page