Some have expressed the very opposite feeling–the fear that they would not be interesting enough to write about.
IRVIN D. YALOMSpecialness as a primary mode of death transcendence takes a number of other maladaptive forms.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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If people in their 20s had more death awareness, would that in fact temper their ambition or drive?
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When people don’t have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.
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Just as you were about to step on it, I asked you “Do you want to cross the footbridge to me?” – Immediately you did not want to anymore; and when I asked you again you remained silent.
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I must stop him from being one of those who call themselves good because they have no claws.
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If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.
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I don’t let any personal views about religion cause me to want to take away something that’s offering the patient comfort.
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The path to decision may be hard because it leads into the territory of both finiteness and groundlessness—domains soaked in anxiety.
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If one is to love oneself one must behave in ways that one can admire.
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If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
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Rather, love is a way of being, a “giving to,” not a ‘falling for”; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person.
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Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That’s when I will be truly dead – when I exist in no one’s memory.
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To love means to be actively concerned for the life and the growth of another.
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In a study we did of bereavement, we found that rather impressive numbers of widows and widowers had not simply gone back to their pre-loss functioning, but grown.
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And if you do the latter, you’re not so worried about the everyday trivialities of life, for example, petty concerns about secrecy or privacy.
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None of my patients are really troubled by the idea that some part of what they say might be in a book in the future.
IRVIN D. YALOM






