Helen Oyeyemi Quotes

Fear is a question: What are you afraid of, and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, your fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if you explore them.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. I know other people have it a lot worse. I do know that, but it's crashing in anyway, and I just can't stop thinking that the little kid eating french fries with his mom in the shopping mall is going to grow up and my sister.

The thing about those conditions [anxiety and depression] that sucks the worst is that you don't address the root cause, so you never see it coming. What's worse is when you don't even KNOW what the root cause is, you can never fix the problem. So that's what's really scary.

The real effect of the WTC calamity has been depressed spirits, anxiety, and uncertainty among publishers, and of course those emotions are not restricted to publishers.

I know the one time I tried therapy, I did after a month or two, and I only lasted a few months, because I started to worry about being entertaining. I kept driving there once a week for an hour and I'm thinking 'What am I going to talk about today?'

I really believe that all of us have a lot of darkness in our souls. Anger, rage, fear, sadness. I don't think that's only reserved for people who have horrible upbringings. I think it really exists and is part of the human condition. I think in the course of your life you figure out ways to deal with that.

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.

My greatest fear is fear. Ooh, meta.

If danger arises in the present moment, there may be an emotion. There may even be pain. But that's a challenge, not a problem. For a problem to exist, you need time and repetitive mind activity.

To grapple with and understand anxiety is, in some sense, to grapple with and understand the human condition.

I'm not surprised that I tend to go for the dark side. I was a really scared kid, so I think I understand what scares people.

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

Even at age 10, I already knew that I was different from most people. My anxiety disorder was still years from being diagnosed, but it affected me quite deeply. I was too afraid to speak out in class, too nervous to make real friends.

It takes a real storm in the average person's life to make him realize how much worrying he has done over the squalls.

It is a queer thing, but imaginary troubles are harder to bear than actual ones.

Fear is a question. What are you afraid of and why? Our fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if we explore them.

It's more about conception and touch and spirit and soul than whether my hardware was in place.

Anxiety is the beginning of conscience, which is the parent of the soul but is not compatible with innocence.

My fears and anxieties throughout my whole life have been slowly squeezing my voice.

I'm no expert. I have no psychic powers, and I sure don't possess any secret wisdom. I'm just Janet. I have strengths, weaknesses, fears, happiness, sadness. I experience joy and I experience pain. I'm highly emotional. I'm very vulnerable.

It took me a long time, but I don't feel as anxious about stupid things anymore - or perhaps they've just been replaced by more complicated stupid things.

Issues deals with the issues I had, the fears I had and it isn't a 'nice' album but fears and depressions are not particularly nice.

Everybody feels good in their skin for about a minute a day, and the rest of the day, you're just trying to navigate your way through the sea of terror.

We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.