1
" We all build internal sea walls to keep at bay the sadnesses of life and the often overwhelming forces within our minds. In whatever way we do this—through love, work, family, faith, friends, denial, alcohol, drugs, or medication—we build these walls, stone by stone, over a lifetime. One of the most difficult problems is to construct these barriers of such a height and strength that one has a true harbor, a sanctuary away from crippling turmoil and pain, but yet low enough, and permeable enough, to let in fresh seawater that will fend off the inevitable inclination toward brackishness. "
― Kay Redfield Jamison , An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
2
" There is no part of one’s beliefs about oneself which cannot be modified by sufficiently powerful psychological techniques. There is nothing about oneself which cannot be taken away or changed. The proper stimuli can, if correctly applied, turn communists into fascists, saints into devils, the meek into heroes, and vice-versa. There is no sovereign sanctuary within ourseles which represents our real nature. There is nobody at home in the internal fortress. Everything we cherish as our ego, everything we believe in, is just what we have cobbled together out of the accident of our birth and subsequent experiences. With drugs, brainwashing, and other techniques of extreme persuasion, we can quite readily make a man a devotee of a different ideology, the patriot of a different country, or the follower of a different religion. "
― Peter J. Carroll
13
" You deserve someone so much better." " You will find someone better so soon that you wont even know." " I told you, he/she wasn't good enough for you." " Oh c'mon! He/she wasn't the ONE for you." " Things will soon be fine. It's just a phase." " He/she will never find anyone better than you. Let him/her rot in hell." Gradually, you realize that all these are STANDARD statements that everybody makes to everyone. Because they don't have anything else to say.But, only your heart knows what you actually want to hear is something else. Entirely different.How you actually want and need to be handled is different. But, you don't say. Because you are scared to lose what's now left with you, and that's completely fine. To be protective of what's left. Because you can't bring back the dead!However, you also realize, that out of all these people there was only one who had the courage to show you a mirror and not be shattered by your wrath.You realize that there was only one set of arms, that were your sanctuary even though you twisted them in an outburst of anger.Not suddenly, but really slowly it settles within you, that it was only one person who knew you inside out and had the bravery to handle you at your worst.Even more slowly it settles you let that person drift away when you wanted them to run back to you and hold onto you.And so you are left with people telling you, " life moves on" and no one telling you, " Let's just pause it here! "
17
" Consider a small child sitting on his mother's lap while she reads him a picture book. The picture book opens to a width that effectively places the child at the center of a closed circle - that of mother's body, arms, and the picture book... That circle, so private and intimate, is a place apart form the demands and stresses of daily life, a sanctuary in and from which the child can explore the many worlds offered in picture books. Despite all of our society's technological advances, it still just takes one child, one book, and one reader, to create this unique space, to work this everyday magic. "
― Martha Parravano
