Mohsin Hamid Quotes

The absent danger greater still appears less fears he who is near the thing he fears.

I was always afraid of dying. Always. It was my fear that made me learn everything I could about my airplane and my emergency equipment, and kept me flying respectful of my machine and always alert in the cockpit.

Bad things happen. And the human brain is especially adept at making sure that we keep track of these events. This is an adaptive mechanism important for survival.

The brains of humans contain a mechanism that is designed to give priority to bad news.

Now the amygdala is our early warning detector, our danger detector. It sorts and scours through all of the information looking for anything in the environment that might harm us. So given a dozen news stories, we will preferentially look at the negative news.

It is ingrained in all living creatures, first of all, to preserve their own safety, to guard against what is harmful, to strive for what is advantageous.

Anxiety is a kind of fuel that activates the fight-or-flight part of the brain in me. It makes sure that a velociraptor isn't around the corner and that you do as much as you possibly can to survive. Because Hollywood has a lot in common with 'Jurassic Park' and its primeval-dinosaur universe.

The amygdala is indeed crucial for monitoring our environment and deciding what's worth getting worked up over. Once the amygdala determines this, however, it merely trips another circuit to actually produce the panic.

Surfing big waves is not an extreme sport to me. I fall off, tumble down, and come up. My heart's racing because I'm thinking I almost drowned, and I thank God I can breathe again, but I always think, 'What am I hitting?' Water.

When threatened, the nervous system sometimes goes into a 'freeze response.' You assess the risk and determine that fight or flight doesn't help you. Staying put does.

I don't have any irrational fears. Obviously, if I was walking through the outback, and I saw a snake, I wouldn't go up and stroke it, but I wouldn't run screaming from it, either.

I don’t wanna die, man. They’re not playing. Have you seen how many of them are out there? One just took a shot at me, so unlike you morons, I’m hiding. Hiding is nice. (Vik)

The hardest thing to judge is what level of risk is safe.

When your house is on fire, you cant be bothered with the neighbors. Or, as we say in Chess, if your King is under attack you don't worry about losing a Pawn on the Queen's side

You go into this survival instinct mode, when you feel like your life is in jeopardy. I found myself in the bathroom with my taser, which I have 10 of, my panic button and my cell phone. It was the most terrifying experience I've ever had in my life

I have read that there are two fears that cannot be trained out of us: the startle reaction upon hearing an unexpected noise, and vertigo. I would like to add a third, to wit, the rapid and direct approch of a known killer

It seemed his demon couldn't tell the physical difference between when he was in danger and when he was "in" Danger.

Relationships are like sharks. They've got to keep going into deeper, colder water, sometimes scarier, darker territories ... to stay alive.

Fear is a healthy instinct, not a sign of weakness. It is a natural self-defense mechanism that is common to felines, wolves, hyenas, and most humans. Even fruit bats know fear, and I salute them for it. If you think the world is weird now, imagine how weird it would be if wild beasts had no fear.

Feeling fear is a good sign that your survival instincts are intact. You need to appreciate the dangers to stay safe.

The enemy," retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don't you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live.

Fear is a part of life. It's a warning mechanism. That's all. It tells you when there's danger around. Its job is to help you survive. Not cripple you into being unable to do it.

There's something very terrifying about that and very primal about it. It's my belief that what horror does for people is that it provides that primal fear that, when we were wild hunter-gatherers, we had as part of our natural lives because maybe something was trying to hunt and gather you as well. We don't have that anymore in life and that's one of the things that horror films and action films provide for us.

I've always been freaked out in deep open water if there's a potential of sharks around.

The cautious wolf fears the pit, the hawk regards with suspicion the snare laid for her, and the fish the hook in its concealment.