Anna Freud Quotes

If I had a comfort blanket, I wouldn't have been as passionate and driven.

My parents were not perfect, but no one's parents are. As childhoods go, mine was pretty comfortable and good in a lot of ways, and yet I still ended up with anxiety.

People blame themselves for their own layoffs…. We ignore the effect on mental health. Every person in this society who is laid off is told that they lack value…. We undermine public health.

You know, the genders are different in how they approach things, and so I really think that women put a lot more guilt on themselves than need be.

People are afraid, and when people are afraid, when their pie is shrinking, they look for somebody to hate. They look for somebody to blame. And a real leader speaks to anxiety and to fear and allays those fears, assuages anxiety.

It's a universal truth that no parent wishes to acknowledge that the fear and phobias we are in thrall to in adulthood almost invariably connect back to childhood experiences.

Dolls, perhaps more than any other object, demonstrate just how thin the line between love and fear, comfort and horror, can be. They are objects of love and sources of reassurance for children, coveted prizes for collectors, sources of terror and horror in numerous movies, television shows, books, and stories.

You know the first time I sat in the chair I felt anything but up, it was very emotional for me. I had a chair in my hotel room, a chair at rehearsal, and I was trying to spend as much time as I could in the chair.

The first time I went to therapy, I had to stop going because they were making me hate my parents.

I have met a couple of six-year-olds who were apparently quite excited to meet me - before they actually met me. And when they actually met me they ran behind their parents' legs and cowered for shelter.

I think that if you take somebody out of their comfort zone, they're going to dislike people because they're not liking themselves in a situation.

In many cases your imagination is much more effective than what can be shown. It primes you to know something is about to happen - the anticipation and anxiety is worse than what ends up happening.

If my father had hugged me even once, I'd be an accountant right now.

By bringing shame to a person, how could one expect to make him a better man?

I always thought of myself as inadequate. Kids of divorced parents always feel that way - that, on some subconscious level, they're responsible.

My job is not to frighten children, but sometimes addressing fears and concerns within the safe boundaries of a picture book can fill me with an awesome responsibility to be as truthful and transparent as possible.

He that has been bitten by a snake is afraid of a rope.

My daughter knows she is loved. My daughter knows she has a mom, and I'm there, and I'm not worried about anything of what everyone else is worried about.

You know how kids have a meltdown? They're overtired or overstimulated? Every once in a while, Wayne, as Mickey, would say, 'Aw, what's the matter, little fella?' And the kid would stop crying, his eyes would get big, and he'd look around, and the parents would say, 'What just happened?'

Worry is the product of a future that we cannot guarantee and guilt is the product of a past we cannot change.

Saying "I feel guilty" is a mere form of words. Saying "I feel ashamed" is not.

Imagination makes cowards of us all.

Disney cartoons are all rated G. It's really funny. There are kids all over the world who still have complexes over Bambi's father getting shot by the hunter and Bambi's mother getting crisped. But that's the way it's always been. This is the sort of material that appeals to kids. Kids understand it instinctively. They grip it.

Being frightened of things is worse than the things themselves.

Why are you lying awake, thinking that you're a terrible person? To keep my mind occupied when I can't sleep. Some people count sheep. I self-loathe.