The PoWs went through something so horrible, you don't know who's coming back.
Words are really powerful. I don't believe that axiom at all - words can absolutely hurt you. Words can wound. They can do a lot of damage. I think they can do way more damage than sticks and stones. I'll take sticks and stones.
The man who has experienced shipwreck shudders even at a calm sea.
The psychology of brutality was worse than the beatings.
It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.
The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.
He knew that Dr. Argon would advise him against bottling up his emotions as it would lead to psychological scarring in the long term.
Lorna was quite young when her mother died, and I think she's blocked out some of the memories. I talked to her a little bit about that, but I wasn't prepared to go around and poke and hurt her.
I just think that as much as we say sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me - words do hurt.
Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.
It is foolish to pretend that one is fully recovered from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar.
Those Catholics, they really nab you when you're young. They sear you. They sear you; they do.
Just as the body goes into shock after a physical trauma, so does the human psyche go into shock after the impact of a major loss.
I do wish I could write like some of the American women, who can be clever and heartfelt and hopeful; people like Lorrie Moore and Jennifer Egan. But Ireland messed me up too much, I think, so I can't.
We need to educate our elite coaches more and have a better approach to teaching the athletes about how to be healthy rather than berate them, humiliate them, use tactics that could scar them for life.
He's psychologically damaged, I suppose, if you stand back and look objectively at him, but then, who isn't?
