Psychological Distortion Quotes

We are alienated, so alienated that the self must disguise itself as an extraterrestrial in order not to alarm us with the truly bizarre dimensions that it encompasses.

For what is delusion but the prelude to hurt. And what is hurt but the prelude to rage.

Paranoiac-critical activity makes the world of delirium pass onto the plane of reality.

To probe for unconscious determinants of behavior and then define a man in their terms exclusively, ignoring his overt behavior altogether, is a greater distortion than ignoring the unconscious completely.

I grew up not understanding what was true and what was not true. It gave me a sense of unreality. I was told that this man [mom's lover] was not my mother's lover - when he was. I was told he was there as a male babysitter for my brother so that he would learn sports and other manly things.

One way or another the no doubt mad idea entered my mind that my own actions had historic importance and this fantasy (?) made it appear that people who harmed me were interfering with an important experiment.

I really believe hatred is not a primal emotion, in that you can't find it in nature. It's basically some kind of distortion of fear.

I think my favorite horror films are really grounded in human psychology, which is to say I think through sort of extreme dislocations of reality.

Guilt was never a rational thing; it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion.

When one has an image about oneself one is surely insane, one lives in a world of illusion.

The more hideous the mental contortions, the greater the delight and bravos of the mass.

Somtimes you lie in a strange room, in a strange person's home, and you feel yourself bending out of shape. Melting, touching something hot, something that warps you in drastic and probably irreversible ways you won't get to take stock of until its too late

I have no patience with this dreadful idea that whatever you have in you has to come out, that you can't suppress true talent. People can be destroyed; they can be bent, distorted, and completely crippled. In spite of all the poetry, all the philosophy to the contrary, we are not really masters of our fate.