Damon Lindelof Quotes

Emotions come first, and in the most direct sense: you first have an emotion and then have a feeling. But also first in the history of the human race, for the ability to have emotions long preceded the ability to have feelings.

You are never angry for the reason you think you are. There's an older hurt under that.

Anger is a call for awareness.

I can't really articulate what I feel.

Although feelings are not supposed to intrude on business discussions, they do anyway - we just disguise them as logic.

The feeling of being 'offended' is a warning indicator that is showing you where to look within yourself for unresolved issues.

All of us live at the feeling level, and our feelings are in large part a result of the way we perceive things. You observe or are told something, you interpret it, and only then do you have a reaction at the feeling level. The point is that feeling is preceded by perception, and all of us are capable of controlling our interpretation [the associations and assumptions] of what we see. If we can control our interpretation, then it logically follows that we can exercise some control over our feelings as well.

If seeing that other person's pain brings up your fear or anger or confusion (which often happens), just start doing tonglen for yourself and all the other people who are stuck in the very same way.

Feelings follow actions. If I'm feeling low, I deliberately act cheery, and I find myself actually feeling happier. If I'm feeling angry at someone, I do something thoughtful for her and my feelings toward her soften. This strategy is uncannily effective.

The words are meaningless except in terms of feeling. Does anyone act as the result of thought or does feeling stimulate action and sometimes thought implement it.

Hardest emotion? They're all pretty damn hard; I don't know really if there's one specifically, but I do think, I don't know what's happening or what I'm feeling when I'm actually listening.

As you interact with others, remember this: anytime a person's response is larger than the issue at hand, the response is almost always about something else.

Without feelings insignificant decisions become excruciating attempts to compare endless arrays of inconsequential things. It's just easier to handle those with emotions.

I'm still afraid of things, obviously - we're human. But I like that feeling of being afraid.

Art cannot single-handedly create enthusiasm... it merely contributes to enthusiasm and guides us to be more conscious of feelings that we might previously have experienced only tentatively or hurriedly.

The frequency with which a man experiences lust depends upon his own physical condition, whereas the occasion which rouse such feelings in him depend upon the social conventions to which he is accustomed

Feeling is not selective, I keep telling you that. You can’t feel pain, you aren’t gonna feel anything else, either.

The deeper reality is that I’m not sure if what I do is real. I usually believe that I’m certain about how I feel, but that seems naive. How do we know how we feel?…There is almost certainly a constructed schism between (a) how I feel, and (b) how I think I feel. There’s probably a third level, too—how I want to think I feel.

you can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry

In real life, when you have an emotional experience, it's never just because of the thing that's been said. There's the backstory. It's like [Ernest] Hemingway's iceberg theory - the current emotional moment is the tip of the iceberg and all of the past is the seven-eighths of the iceberg that's underwater.

I'd rather deal with anger than apathy.

Unless you go through all the genuine angers you feel, both justified and unjustified, the feelings of love that you have will not have any legitimate base and will be at least partially false. Plus, eventually you will go crazy.

Sometimes I'm angry, sometimes I'm not angry.

I never utter my real feelings about anything. My lighter, superficial side will always be too quick for the deeper side of me, and that's why it always wins.