c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Richard J. McNally, a Harvard clinical research psychologist, considered the "politics of trauma" in Remembering Trauma (2003).[139] He argued that the definition of PTSD had been too broadly applied, and suggested narrowing it to include "only those stressors associated with serious injury or threat to life" —a suggestion that would drastically alter the public discussion of rape, incest, abuse by clergy, and the traumatic affect of racism and homophobia, to name just a few potentially trauma-inducing contexts and actions.[140] McNally presents his conclusion that most traumatic experience is remembered soon after the event, as if his view represents objective scientific research, when much evidence suggests that memories of traumatic events reoccur over time unpredictably. McNally’s bias is apparent in his strong support of Ian Hacking’s curiously fervent effort to discredit the diagnosis of multiple personality (dissociative identity disorder) and Hacking’s effort to blame clinicians attached to recovered memory therapy of the spurious "rewriting" of patients’ "souls."[141] While McNally accounts for those who do recall their traumas, he does not equally offer an explanation for those who do not remember them, and his extensive bibliography and research do not cite key publications that would challenge his results.[142] - Page 19
— Kristine Stiles, Concerning Consequences: Studies in Art, Destruction, and Trauma
The silence in our house now is born from the need for intense concentration, as we all carefully step around the truth we wish we didn't know, the person we can't help that Bo became, the future we're all afraid is collapsing around us, falling as silent and cold and crushing as snow.
— Beth Revis, A World Without You
The basic human craving is for meaning.
— Colin Argyle Thomson, Swift Runner
To deny someone's feelings or experiences it to literally deny their reality.
— Danu Morrigan, You're Not Crazy - It's Your Mother! Understanding and Healing for Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers
Invalidation is about dismissing your experiences, thoughts and above all your emotions. Indeed the intention is to not even allow you to have those thoughts, experiences and emotions. It‟s a way of invading your head and reprogramming it. It‟s psychological abuse (messing with your thoughts) and emotional abuse (messing with your feelings).
— Danu Morrigan
I am mad. The thought calms me. I don't have to try to be sane anymore. It's over. I sleep
— Marya Hornbacher
To resist a compulsion with willpower alone is to hold back an avalanche by melting the snow with a candle. It just keeps coming and coming and coming.
— David Adam, The Man Who Couldn't Stop
Officially, it is no more possible to be a little bit OCD than it is to be a little bit pregnant or a little bit dead.
— David Adam, The Man Who Couldn't Stop
You are not broken and in need of fixing. You are wounded and in need of healing.
— Danu Morrigan
Don't take my devils away, because my angels may flee too.
— Rainer Maria Rilke
It turns out that up to 35 percent of people with bipolar disorder also have ADHD.
— Julie A. Fast, Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder: Understanding and Helping Your Partner
Our Narcissistic Mother told us a Big Lie. She told it subliminally if not in actual words. And The Big Lie was this: If we tried hard enough we could win her approval and her love. If we were good enough, or wise enough, or beautiful enough, or that-magical-unspecified-ingredient enough. In other words, if we achieved perfection, she would love us.
— Danu Morrigan, You're Not Crazy - It's Your Mother! Understanding and Healing for Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers
Try to come to a place where you accept your own imperfections. Where it‟s okay to be less than perfect. Because you are less than perfect
—  it‟s the human condition. And that‟s okay!
You have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to the world from running you plumb crazy
— Ken Kesey
If others fell by the wayside, dear women and strong, loved by men, how had she, single and unloved, kept her sanity?
— Glendon Swarthout, The Homesman
The humanity we all share is more important than the mental illnesses we may not
— Elyn R. Saks, The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness
In the culture people talk about trauma as an event that happened a long time ago. But what trauma is, is the imprints that event has left on your mind and in your sensations... the discomfort you feel and the agitation you feel and the rage and the helplessness you feel right now.
— Bessel A. van der Kolk
As you may already know, post-traumatic stress disorder is extremely complex. Each client has a unique, perhaps virtually unbelievable, set of experiences, and an almost equally set of reactions to those experiences.
— Aphrodite Matsakis, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Many [Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers] DONMs have a deeply buried sense that we are inherently flawed. That there is something twisted and evil and nasty and noxious and poisonous about us, and that we were born that way. It‟s part of who we are rather than just something we do. This brings with it a huge all-encompassing sense of shame.
— Danu Morrigan, You're Not Crazy - It's Your Mother! Understanding and Healing for Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers
Mary was my first encounter with dissociative identity disorder (DID), which at that time was called multiple personality disorder. As dramatic as its symptoms are, the internal splitting and emergence of distinct identities experienced in DID represent only the extreme end of the spectrum of mental life.
— Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
And for three weeks I was trapped in my own mind again. But this time, I had weapons. One of them, maybe the most important, was this knowledge: I have been ill before, then well again. Wellness is possible.
— Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive
If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist; If you talk to the dead, you are a schizophrenic
— Thomas Szaz
No one is too far away to be cared for, or to care.
— Martin   Baker
Mental health is one of the last great taboos.
— Stephen Fry
Today I feel no wish to demonstrate that sanity is impossible. On the contrary, though I remain no less sadly certain than in the past that sanity is a rather rare phenomenon, I am convinced that it can be achieved and would like to see more of it.
— Aldous Huxley, Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited
Do You Have DID?Determining if you have DID isn’t as easy as it sounds. In fact, many clinicians and psychotherapists have such difficulty figuring out whether or not people have DID that it typically takes them several years to provide an accurate diagnosis. Because many of the symptoms of DID overlap with other psychological diagnoses, as well as normal occurrences such as forgetfulness or talking to yourself, there is a great deal of confusion in making the diagnosis of DID. Although this section will provide you with information which may help you determine if you have DID, it is a good idea to consult with a professional in the mental health ﬁeld so that you can have further confirmation of your findings.
— Karen Marshall, Amongst Ourselves: A Self-Help Guide to Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder
Be who you are. Do what you can. Embrace the journey.
— Martin   Baker
You have got to get creative if you want anyone to notice your goddamn teenage angst.
— Nic Sheff, Schizo
Nine out of ten introverts agree: The telephone is the tool of the devil.
— Sophia Dembling, The Introvert's Way: Living a Quiet Life in a Noisy World
Maybe having schizophrenia is my big fuck-you to the status quo. Only, I guess at this point, being normal and well-adjusted would be, like, the biggest fuck-you of them all. So I guess I'll just try to shoot for that, if I can.
— Nic Sheff, Schizo
Please don't continually say I'm paranoid.Why?It makes me paranoid.
— Philip K. Dick, Philip K. Dick: The Last Interview and Other Conversations
…much will be gained if we succeed in transforming your hysterical misery into common unhappiness. With a mental life that has been restored to health, you will be better armed against that unhappiness.
— Sigmund Freud, Štúdie o hystérii
Saying that it's all in your mind is a figure of speech. Don't let your mind play with your mental well being
— Shellie Palmer
DSM-5 is not 'the bible of psychiatry' but a practical manual for everyday work. Psychiatric diagnosis is primarily a way of communicating. That function is essential but pragmatic—categories of illness can be useful without necessarily being 'true.' The DSM system is a rough-and-ready classification that brings some degree of order to chaos. It describes categories of disorder that are poorly understood and that will be replaced with time. Moreover, current diagnoses are syndromes that mask the presence of true diseases. They are symptomatic variants of broader processes or arbitrary cut-off points on a continuum.
— Joel Paris
Hasn’t everyone taken a nervous breakdown at some point? Maybe I suffered a nervous breakthrough. I don’t know what tothink. It echoes inside your skull.
— Kirkland Ciccone, North of Porter
The categories used in psychiatric diagnosis are based on observation of signs and symptoms, rather than on pathological processes. One can make use of a few signs, such as facial expressions associated with depression or the flight of ideas associated with mania. But what clinicians mainly use for diagnosis are symptoms, the subject experiences reported by patients. Psychiatrists have little knowledge of the processes that lie behind these phenomena. Thus psychiatric diagnoses, with very few exceptions, are syndromes, not diseases.
— Joel Paris, The Intelligent Clinician's Guide to the DSM-5
Because this is my life, the only one I get. And if it's a choice between a life Albilitoled, or a life full of Life... well, that's not really a choice at all.
— David Arnold
Life isn't always easy. I struggle day to day. But I choose to live life to the fullest and keep reminding myself that I am stronger than ANYTHING that stands in my way.
— Tanya Masse
Sometimes, though, we let ourselves get so used to being 'fine' that we lose track of how 'not fine' we are.
— Martina Boone, Compulsion
Every sea to scare the sailor, I have sailed.
— Patrick Stump
The most terrifying aspect of human health is our refusal to take steps to help ourselves and the fact that we are so often responsible for our own demise through lack of positive action.
— Lena Dunham, Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"
Nobody feels ashamed of going to the dentist; it’s socially appropriate to take care of your teeth, even preventively. In short, it’s more normal to take care of our dental health than our mental health . . . it’s more acceptable to care for our mouths than our minds.
— Joe Dilley, The Game Is Playing Your Kid: How to Unplug and Reconnect in the Digital Age
Forging fake smiles to hide painful truths doesn't take away the hurt, but sometimes safeguards our emotions from those adamant not to understand.
— Aisha Mirza
I can't answer you in a nutshell. We wouldn't fit unless we saw the same shrink.
— Brian Spellman
The word, 'issues,' is perhaps a misnomer, a gross understatement, or a pale and withered description for very real psychological illnesses and emotional losses. Nevertheless, "post-adoption issues" is a catch-all phrase, and at least it avoid pathologizing adoptees.
— Laura Dennis
The mental health system is filled with survivors of prolonged, repeated childhood trauma. This is true even though most people who have been abused in childhood never come to psychiatric attention. To the extent that these people recover, they do so on their own.[21] While only a small minority of survivors, usually those with the most severe abuse histories, eventually become psychiatric patients, many or even most psychiatric patients are survivors of childhood abuse.[22] The data on this point are beyond contention. On careful questioning, 50-60 percent of psychiatric inpatients and 40-60 percent of outpatients report childhood histories of physical or sexual abuse or both.[23] In one study of psychiatric emergency room patients, 70 percent had abuse histories.[24] Thus abuse in childhood appears to be one of the main factors that lead a person to seek psychiatric treatment as an adult.[25]
— Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
Didn’t you find it all … rather unsatisfying?”“Yes, but I couldn’t seem to see a way out. It was like being three different people, and they all wanted to go different ways.”A slight smile. “The result was I went nowhere.
— Pat Barker, Regeneration
My own studies on the natural history of DID indicate only 20% of DID patients have an overt DID adaption on a chronic basis, and 14% of them deliberately disguise their manifestations of DID. Only 6% make their DID obvious on an ongoing basis. Eighty percent have windows of diagnosability when stressed or triggered by some significant event, interaction, situation or date. Therefore, 94% of DID patients show only mild or suggestive evidence of their conditions most of the time. Yet DID patients often will acknowledge that their personality systems are actively switching and/or far more active than it would appear on the surface (Loewenstein et al., 1987).R.P. Kluft (2009) A clinician's understanding of dissociation. pp 599-623.
— Paul F. Dell
Relaxation and anxiety are incompatible responses that cannot coexist.
— Randy Kamen, Behind the Therapy Door: Simple Strategies to Transform Your Life
It is perhaps fortunate that Sylvia was oblivious to the commotion behind the scenes. Apparently, Henry O. Teltscher had written a letter to Betsy Talbot Blackwell, warning her that one of her guest editors was on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
— Elizabeth Winder, Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953
Here's a thought to help ease the stress: "Good enough is the new perfect.
— Randy Kamen, Behind the Therapy Door: Simple Strategies to Transform Your Life
They'll want to kill the crazies first. Big fish eat little fish -- always have, always will.
— Allan Dare Pearce, Hitler Burns Detroit
I'm broken, but I have to learn how to live. I feel stuck together with scotch tape, like after any breath everything could come apart. If it does, if it all comes undone, I think I'll fall down and never rise again.
— Anna White, Mended: Thoughts on Life, Love, and Leaps of Faith
Everybody struggles with this stuff, you know. With social discomfort and grief and fitting in. People with syndromes, people with disorders, people with diagnoses, and without. People who would be classified as neurotypical. Idiots and geniuses, maids and doctors. Nobody's got it all figured out.
— Jael McHenry
And that will be on my medical records for ever.Everyone will always know I’m a nutter. Behavioural problems. I’m just a bloody label…A label written on a white board in a single room without a radio, in a place where everyone else was at least 20 years older than me. Can’t think about it. It’s anger that goes nowhere.
— Rae Earl, My Mad Fat Diary
I’m so NUMB. I just don’t care, it seems-but I must do. This is all going to sound totally incoherent. I’m that bunged up, but totally empty. I think my worries about who I am have reached a head.I mean who is Rae Earl? I think I know myself, but then other people say things.
— Rae Earl, My Mad Fat Diary
If you aren’t paranoid before you arrive in this city, give it a few weeks and you will soon notice it creeping in, dripping into your subconscious like a leaky tap. The trick is not to give a flying fuck what anyone thinks about you, and if you are in the right frame of mind this can be an easy trick to perform but if not you’ll soon notice that for a city full of people who do a great Stevie Wonder impersonation when it comes to the homeless and beggars and casual violence towards others, wearing the wrong kind of shoes or a cheap suit brings out a sneering, hateful attitude that can have weaker minded individuals locked in their houses for weeks before harassing their doctors for prescriptions of Prozac and Beta blockers just to make it out the front door.
— Garry Crystal, Leaving London
Although the terminology implies scientific endorsement, false memory syndrome is not currently an accepted diagnostic label by the APA and is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Seventeen researchers (Carstensen et al., 1993) noted that this syndrome is a "non-psychological term originated by a private foundation whose stated purpose is to support accused parents" (p.23). Those authors urged professionals to forgo use of this pseudoscientific terminology. Terminology implies acceptance of this pseudodiagnostic label may leave readers with the mistaken impression that false memory syndrome is a bona fide clinical disorder supported by concomitant empirical evidence.(85)...... it may be easier to imagine women forming false memories given biases against women's mental and cognitive abilities (e.g., Coltrane & Adams, 1996). 86
— Michelle R. Hebl
I laughed it off but I close the bedroom door and I lose it and I stick it all down here and this is where it all stays. And this is where it has to stay because I am not ending up in the nutter ward again with brown walls, jigsaws, and people crying that their husbands left them, and men slamming their heads against walls, and Mum bringing me a mini trifle and a copy of Smash Hits like that would make everything better. It didn’t. It won’t. It can’t. Psychiatric wards when most of my mates were….I can’t tell anyone what is going on…Can’t write…Can’t think about it.Not even here.
— Rae Earl, My Mad Fat Diary
We are particularly concerned with the question to what degree approval and implementation of an explanatory model minimising collective or institutional responsibility for certain problems and emphasising individual responsibility promotes detrimental perceptions and behaviours amongst individuals, who adopt and adapt similar explanations to justify their own lack of responsibility. For instance, admissibility of diminished responsibility arguments in criminal sentencing can be viewed as a direct consequence of a broader public acceptance of explanatory models purporting to prove a direct causal relationship between pharmacology, mental health and/or diminished ability to function.
— Daniel Waterman
Make sure your priorities line up with your values.
— Michael Barbarulo
Nothing. That's why it's funny. It's so bad I just think it's funny,' Renee says, tilting her head back so the chips don't fall out of her mouth.‘Do you really?’‘If I don’t laugh about it what else will I do?’She doesn’t actually laugh though. She falls back, throws chips into the air and tries to catch them in her mouth
— Dawn O'Porter, Paper Aeroplanes
Resistance to change in the mental health system comes disguised as protection of civil liberties and freedom of speech. As a result, many parents, families, and caregivers are at a loss and feel defeated by the majority of Americans who strive to maintain the current rules of society.
— Tamara  Hill, Mental Health In A Failed American System: What Every Parent, Family, & Caregiver Should Know
Why should one think thay are okay mentally? Making a study of ourselves is the best solution to our society.Our minds are so complex and if we don't have an avenue to explore, we just cough it up as it is just who I am...However, it is just half of who you are, we need to find our other half and it is not in the form of another person."-Serena Jade
— Serena Jade, Charismatic Connection: The Authentic Soul Mate Experience
If you haven't caused a scene in a psych unit, it's just because you haven't been inside long enough.
— Victor LaValle, The Devil in Silver
Accelerated Rehabilitation had a scientific sound, as if Pierre would rehabilitate faster and faster in an elliptical path until evaporating in a blue flash of pure mental health.
— Tom Drury, The Driftless Area
We are so used to our own history, we do not see it as remarkable or out of the ordinary, whereas others might see it as horrendous. Further, we tend to minimize that which we feel shameful about.
— Patrick J. Carnes, Sexual Anorexia: Overcoming Sexual Self-Hatred
When are we going to stop being afraid to push for change and begin putting into action the things we have discussed for centuries? Mental health cannot wait any longer. Lets get to work!
— Tamara  Hill
Self-loathing is man’s effort to sweep the moon of footprints.
— Joseph Grammer, Cocoon Kids
The buildings, covered by red tiled roofs, undulate over the hillsides like a drift of wildflowers.
— Jane Thompson
Despite the growing clinical and research interest in dissociative symptoms and disorders, it is also true that the substantial prevalence rates for dissociative disorders are still disproportional to the number of studies addressing these conditions. For example, schizophrenia has a reported rate of 0.55% to 1% of the normal population (Goldner, Hus, Waraich, & Somers, more or less similar to the prevalence of DID. Yet a PubMed search generated 25,421 papers on research related to schizophrenia, whereas only 73 publications were found for DID-related research.
— Paul H. Blaney, Oxford Textbook of Psychopathology
The lifetime prevalence of dissociative disorders among women in a general urban Turkish community was 18.3%, with 1.1% having DID (ar, Akyüz, & Doan, 2007). In a study of an Ethiopian rural community, the prevalence of dissociative rural community, the prevalence of dissociative disorders was 6.3%, and these disorders were as prevalent as mood disorders (6.2%), somatoform disorders (5.9%), and anxiety disorders (5.7%) (Awas, Kebede, & Alem, 1999). A similar prevalence of ICD-10 dissociative disorders (7.3%) was reported for a sample of psychiatric patients from Saudi Arabia (AbuMadini & Rahim, 2002).
— Paul H. Blaney, Oxford Textbook of Psychopathology
During this hour in the waking streets I felt at ease, at peace; my body, which I despised, operated like a machine. I was spaced out, the catchphrase my friends at school used to describe their first experiments with marijuana and booze. This buzzword perfectly described a picture in my mind of me, Alice, hovering just below the ceiling like a balloon and looking down at my own small bed where a big man lay heavily on a little girl I couldn’t quite see or recognize. It wasn’t me. I was spaced out on the ceiling. I had that same spacey feeling when I cooked for my father, which I still did, though less often. I made omelettes, of course. I cracked a couple of eggs into a bowl, and as I reached for the butter dish, I always had an odd sensation in my hands and arms. My fingers prickled; it didn’t feel like me but someone else cutting off a great chunk of greasy butter and putting it into the pan. I’d add a large amount of salt — I knew what it did to your blood pressure, and I mumbled curses as I whisked the brew. When I poured the slop into the hot butter and shuffled the frying pan over the burner, it didn’t look like my hand holding the frying-pan handle and I am sure it was someone else’s eyes that watched the eggs bubble and brown. As I dropped two slices of wholemeal bread in the toaster, I would observe myself as if from across the room and, with tingling hands gripping the spatula, folded the omelette so it looked like an apple envelope. My alien hands would flip the omelette on to a plate and I’d spread the remainder of the butter on the toast when the two slices of bread leapt from the toaster. ‘Delicious,’ he’d say, commenting on the food before even trying it.
— Alice Jamieson, Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind
You know how most illnesses have symptoms you can recognize? Like fever, upset stomach, chills, whatever. Well, with manic depression, it's sexual promiscuity, excessive spending, and substance abuse - and that just sounds like a fantastic weekend in Vegas to me!
— Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking
There's something to that in both directions," said Ekaterin mildly. "Nothing is more guaranteed to make one start acting like a child than to be treated like one. It's so infuriating. It took me the longest time to figure out how to stop falling into that trap.""Yes, exactly," said Kareen eagerly. "You understand! So—how did you make them stop?""You can't make them—whoever your particular them is—do anything, really," said Ekaterin slowly. "Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste . . . years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just . . . take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that, and walk away. But that's hard.
— Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign
Typically, a psychiatrist can fool a patient by telling him the root of his problem can be fixed with this pill, that support group, and more psychiatry appointments. They don't tell the patient that the really fucked up people never get better. They mask their diseases by dousing them in heavy narcotics to numb their sickness, for years, until the peaceful eternal sleep comes and takes them away.
— J. Matthew Nespoli
Lucy had to guard her reputation - her reputation for sanity - the way that a woman a hundred years before would have had to guard her reputation for virtue.
— Nancy Werlin, Impossible
Writing my blog has saved me thousands on therapy.
— Phil Cooke, One Big Thing: Discovering What You Were Born to Do
Eventually I had gotten it together enough to call her. I did so partly to let her know where I was and partly to almost brag about where I was. Whenever I’d get morose, sulky, or stuck somewhere between crabby and suicidal, she was quick to say something disarming or indirectly tell me things weren’t that bad. Laura wasn’t exactly dismissive of my feelings, but I often left our conversations feeling like she didn’t quite get how harsh things felt for me—or at least that she wasn’t willing to acknowledge it. This frustrated and upset me. I spent so much time trying to hide the depths of my feelings and the clusterfuckedness of my life from everyone, except her. The one person I was honest with was often telling me that I was being too dramatic, or overdramatic, or overthinking things, or would I just please change the subject. It wasn’t like she didn’t believe me—it was more like she questioned why I let things bother me so much. In a small way, ending up in the mental ward was a strange kind of validation for me. Being in Timken Mercy proved that when I was insisting that things were terrible, and she kept insisting that they weren’t, they were, in fact, kind of terrible.
— Eric Nuzum, Giving Up the Ghost: A Story About Friendship, 80s Rock, a Lost Scrap of Paper, and What It Means to Be Haunted
Right there in that room, listening to the tape Laura gave me, I decided that I wanted something more than what I’d allowed myself to become. Listening to the voices and piano notes fade in and out, I decided that I wanted to be happy. If I had to fight for things in life, I wanted to fight for something bigger than the right to eat with a fork. I wanted to love and be loved and feel alive. I had no idea how to find my way, but listening to that music wash over me, I felt, for the first time, that the struggle I faced would be worth it.
— Eric Nuzum, Giving Up the Ghost: A Story About Friendship, 80s Rock, a Lost Scrap of Paper, and What It Means to Be Haunted
She continued her own studies, principally attending to German, and to Literature; and every Sunday she went alone to the German and English chapels. Her walks too were solitary, and principally taken in the allée défendue, where she was secure from intrusion. This solitude was a perilous luxury to one of her temperament; so liable as she was to morbid and acute mental suffering.
— Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë
Sometimes, the best way to help someone is just to be near them.
— Veronica Roth, Divergent
Maybe that was why she couldn't cry, she realized, staring dry-eyed at the ceiling. Because what was the point in crying when there was no one there to comfort you? And what was worse, when you couldn't even comfort yourself?
— Cassandra Clare, City of Glass
I wish I could help you" I whisper.You are," he murmurs against my knee. "just dont leave me, okay? Everyone leaves me.
— Simone Elkeles, Rules of Attraction
Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer.
— Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume
Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside; candles at four o'clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.
— Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater
The richness of the rain made me feel safe and protected; I have always considered the rain to be healing—a blanket—the comfort of a friend. Without at least some rain in any given day, or at least a cloud or two on the horizon, I feel overwhelmed by the information of sunlight and yearn for the vital, muffling gift of falling water.
— Douglas Coupland, Life After God
Because being comfortable meant she might lower her guard, and she could not let that happen.
— Nicholas Sparks, Safe Haven
Here too it’s masquerade, I find: As everywhere, the dance of mind.I grasped a lovely masked procession,And caught things from a horror show…I’d gladly settle for a false impression,If it would last a little longer, though.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
People like hurting each other but loving is not a waste.
— Ai Yazawa, NANA: The Complete Series
It was like the way you wanted sunshine on Saturdays, or pancakes for breakfast. They just made you feel good.
— Sarah Addison Allen, Garden Spells
For now, I just want things all safe and familiar. My life may not be perfect, but it is what I have known.
— Ann M. Martin, A Corner of the Universe
We are called at certain moments to comfort people who are enduring some trauma. Many of us don't know how to react in such situations, but others do. In the first place, they just show up. They provide a ministry of presence. Next, they don't compare. The sensitive person understands that each person's ordeal is unique and should not be compared to anyone else's. Next, they do the practical things--making lunch, dusting the room, washing the towels. Finally, they don't try to minimize what is going on. They don't attempt to reassure with false, saccharine sentiments. They don't say that the pain is all for the best. They don't search for silver linings. They do what wise souls do in the presence of tragedy and trauma. They practice a passive activism. They don't bustle about trying to solve something that cannot be solved. The sensitive person grants the sufferer the dignity of her own process. She lets the sufferer define the meaning of what is going on. She just sits simply through the nights of pain and darkness, being practical, human, simple, and direct.
— David  Brooks, The Road to Character
After moral poisoning, one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne.
— Stendhal, The Red and the Black
...sometimes you just want the comfort of knowing that somebody really does care about you (even if they show it in peculiar ways).
— Cara Lockwood, I Do -- But I Don't
tiny: did someone die?me: yeah, i did.he smiles again at that.tiny: well, then... welcome to the afterlife.
— David Levithan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness -- just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.
— Laura Ingalls Wilder, Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Wisdom and Virtues
Don't pretend to comfort me, my friend. I might also pretend to not let you down.
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
A meow massages the heart.
— Stuart McMillan
What comfort there is in the skin of someone you love!
— Erich Maria Remarque, The Night in Lisbon
When we lost something precious, and we'd looked and looked and still couldn't find it, then we didn't have to be completely heartbroken. We still had that last bit of comfort, thinking one day, when we were grown up, and we were free to travel the country, we could always go and find it again in Norfolk.
— Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
Peter was not very well during the evening. His mother put him to bed, and made some chamomile tea: "One table-spoonful to be taken at bedtime.
— Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Peter Rabbit
I like to hear a storm at night. It is so cosy to snuggle down among the blankets and feel that it can't get at you.
— L.M. Montgomery
I have a strange illusion quite often. I think I've become deaf. I have to make a little noise to prove I'm not. I clear my throat to show myself that everything is normal. It's like the little Japanese girl they found in the ruins of Hiroshima. Everything dead
—  and she was singing to her doll.
I found the prospect daunting, but somehow comforting, too, because the counselors insisted it could be done, and, after all, many of them were recovering alcoholics themselves.
— Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot
Being his real brother I could feel I live in his shadows, but I never have and I do not now. I live in his glow.
— Michael Morpurgo, Private Peaceful
When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb. The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one's ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender, of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries.
— Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
It was her brother,' said Mr. Thornton to himself. 'I am glad.I may never see her again; but it is comfort-a relief-to know that much. I knew she could not be unmaidenly; and yet I yearned for conviction. Now I am glad!' It was a little golden thread running through the dark web of his present fortunes; which were growing ever gloomier and more gloomy.
— Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
Comfort is your biggest trap and coming out of comfort zone your biggest challenge.
— Manoj Arora, From the Rat Race to Financial Freedom
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
He left the drapes open, watched the lights of the cars and of the fast food joints through the window glass, comforted to know there was another world out there, one he could walk to anytime he wanted.
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
I wanted to soothe and comfort her, the way she had comforted her daughters.
— A.B. Shepherd, The Beacon
Catherine had never wanted comfort more, and [Henry] looked as if he was aware of it.
— Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
Never underestimate the lingering effects of a dash of spontaneous comfort.
— Gina Greenlee, Postcards and Pearls: Life Lessons from Solo Moments on the Road
But grieving people are selfish. They won’t let you comfort them and they say you don’t understand and they make you feel useless when all your life you’ve been functional to them.
— Melina Marchetta, The Piper's Son
So what should we do with our last few days?”“I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you,” Peete replies.“Come on, then,” I say, pulling him into my room.It feels like a luxury, sleeping with Peeta again. I didn’t realize until now how starved I’ve been for human closeness. For the feel of him beside me in the darkness.
— Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire
Love shouldn't be comfortable.
— Connie Brockway, The Bridal Season
I would self-medicate with fat, carbohydrates, and Jane Austen, my number one drug of choice, my constant companion through every breakup, every disappointment, every crisis. Men might come and go, but Jane Austen was always there in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part.
— Laurie Viera Rigler, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict
Every minister worthy of the name has to walk the line between prophetic vision and spiritual sustenance, between telling people the comforting things they want to hear and challenging them with the difficult things they need to hear. In Oxford, Daddy began to feel as though all the members wanted him to do was to marry them and bury them and stay away from their souls.
— Timothy B. Tyson, Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story
Adventures, I reflected, are all very fine but a certain amount of civilised comfort forms the true kernel of our desires.
— K.W. Jeter, Morlock Night
George's hand lifted and fell away again. It seemed an insult to imply that anything so small as a touch could stop the raw feeling in Sir Stephen's suddenly dark and haunted eyes.
— Mette Ivie Harrison, The Princess and the Hound
She was of traditional build herself, but her figure was largely concealed by the folds of a generously cut shift dress made out of a flecked green fabric. It was like a tent, thought Mma Ramotswe--a camouflage tent of the sort that the Botswana Defence Force might use. But I do not sit in judgement on the dresses of others, she told herself, and a tent was a practical enough garment, if that is what one felt comfortable in.
— Alexander McCall Smith, The Double Comfort Safari Club
Have some more tea, dear," Hester said, reaching for the pot and refilling my cup. "I always find that helps.
— Beth Pattillo
She was dry. She was lying on something soft. She was wrapped in quilts. There was a star of light drifting above her, and a smell like a herb garden. Taggle was a long warmth stretched out at one side, his chin in her hand, his tail curled over her neck. She thought they might be in heaven.Taggle farted.Plain Kate coughed and sneezed. And then she really was awake.
— Erin Bow
That's the best thing I can think of. Having a good hold on your arse always makes me feel steady.
— Diana Gabaldon, An Echo in the Bone
Her eyes were glistening, but for some reason he couldn't reach out and touch her. It was like some gestures were so simple they were beyond him.
— Garth Risk Hallberg, City on Fire
If he was looking for fancy embellishment, or obvious signs of wealth, he was to be disappointed. Amanda couldn't bear pretension or impracticality, and so she had chosen furniture for function rather than for style. If she bought a chair, it must be large and comfortable. If she bought a side table, it must be sturdy enough to hold a stack of books or a big lamp. She did not like gilding and porcelain disks, nor all the carving and hieroglyphics that were certainly fashionable.
— Lisa Kleypas, Suddenly You
As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness. -Psalm 17:15
— God, New King James Version
Amalie took his hand and spread it against her heart. Her smile was utterly tranquil. 'The world changes and the world stays the same', she told him, ... 'The old moon sets. New moon rises.
— Sharon Shinn, Reader and Raelynx
God will be there for you when no one else is. He will walk with you on every mountain. He will carry you through every valley. He will never leave you or forsake you. You don't need me
—  you need Him. I cannot be all those things for you. Only God can.
He had performed this ritual before, getting into trouble and then coming to his mother, uneasy and uncertain, not sure precisely what sort of trouble he was in. With uncanny regularity, she had seemed to jump onto a higher plane of reasoning and identify his problems, laying them out for him so they became unavoidable. This was not a service that made him love her any more, but it did make her invaluable to him.
— Greg Bear, Blood Music
Shall I make you a cup of tea? He asked. It was the classic response to crisis practiced throughout these islands—in England, Scotland, and elsewhere. Emotional turmoil, danger, even disaster could be faced with far greater equanimity if the kettle was switched on. War has been declared! There’s been a major earthquake! The stock market has collapsed! Oh really? Let me put the kettle on….
— Alexander McCall Smith, The Revolving Door of Life
Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.
— George Orwell, A Nice Cup Of Tea
Terry Gilliam has spoken scathingly about my preference for physical comfort. I have come to the conclusion that this is very much his problem.
— John Cleese, So, Anyway...
it’s hard giving out love to people who shove it back in your face. That’s not what love’s supposed to be about. No, it’s not perfect and people get hurt, but it’s a give and take. And it should be comfort, not pain.
— Nyrae Dawn, Façade
The world won't get more or less terrible if we're indoors somewhere with a mug of hot chocolate.
— Kamila Shamsie, Burnt Shadows
I couldn’t resist the urge to reach over to the gearshift and put my hand over Wesley’s. His skin was warm and soft, and I could feel his pulse throbbing steadily beneath my palm. I forgot about my stupid car and my fight with Casey. I just wanted Wesley to smile again. Even that cocky grin would have worked. I hated that he was so hurt by the possibility of losing his sister’s respect. I wanted to comfort him. I cared abou
— Kody Keplinger, The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend
He’ll never let you leave his side again.”“And there is comfort in knowing that, as there will be for Yuri. It is a great thing to be needed by another.
— Mary Calmes, Crucible of Fate
You’re angry at me,” she says.I stop crying at once. My whole body goes cold and still. She squats down beside me, and even though I’m careful not to look up, not to look at her at all, I can feel her, can smell the sweat from her skin and hear the ragged pattern of her breathing.“You’re angry at me,” she repeats, and her voice hitches a little. “You think I don’t care.”Her voice is the same. For years I used to imagine that voice lilting over those forbidden words: I love you. Remember. They cannot take it. Her last words to me before she went away.She shuffles forward and squats next to me. She hesitates, then reaches out and places her palm against my cheek, and turns my head toward hers so I’m forced to look at her. I can feel the calluses on her fingers.In her eyes, I see myself reflected in miniature, and I tunnel back to a time before she left, before I believed she was gone forever, when her eyes welcomed me into every day and shepherded me, every night, into sleep.“You turned out even more beautiful than I’d imagined,” she whispers. She, too, is crying.The hard casement inside me breaks.“Why?” is the only word that comes. Without intending to or even thinking about it, I allow her to draw me against her chest, let her wrap her arms around me. I cry into the space between her collarbones, inhaling the still-familiar smell of her skin.There are so many things I need to ask her: What happened to you in the Crypts? How could you let them take you away? Where did you go? But all I can say is: “Why didn’t you come for me? After all those years—all that time—why didn’t you come?” Then I can’t speak at all; my sobs become shudders.“Shhh.” She presses her lips to my forehead, strokes my hair, just like she used to when I was a child. I am a baby once again in her arms—helpless and needy. “I’m here now.”She rubs my back while I cry. Slowly, I feel the darkness drain out of me, as though pulled away by the motion of her hand. Finally I can breathe again. My eyes are burning, and my throat feels raw and sore. I draw away from her, wiping my eyes with the heel of my hand, not even caring that my nose is running. I’m suddenly exhausted—too tired to be hurt, too tired to be angry. I want to sleep, and sleep.“I never stopped thinking about you,” my mother says. “I thought of you every day—you and Rachel.
— Lauren Oliver, Requiem
Anna and Emma just poofed.”“What?”“I was standing there. I was watching them. I was holding Anna’s hand when it happened.”Astrid rose and without really thinking about it wrapped her arms around Sam like she did when she was trying to comfort Little Pete.But unlike Little Pete, Sam responded to her touch by awkwardly hugging her back. For a moment his face was in her hair and she heard his ragged breathing close to her ear. And it seemed like they might do it again, the kissing thing, but then, both at once, they pushed away.“She was scared,” Sam said. “Anna, I mean. She saw Emma disappear. They were born just six minutes apart. So, first Emma. Then Anna, waiting for it. Knowing it was coming.
— Michael Grant, Gone
One dangerous thing about comfort is this: it always comforts and it can really stop real purpose!
— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, Religion, Philosophy and life
I had a ritual—and having any ritual sounded so mature that I told everyone about it, even the regulars. On my days off I woke up late and went to the coffee shop and had a cappuccino and read. Then around five p.m., when the light was failing, I would take out a bottle of dry sherry and pour myself a glass, take out a jar of green olives, put on Miles Davis, and read the wine atlas. I didn't know why it felt so luxurious, but one day I realized that ritual was why I had moved to New York—to eat olives and get tipsy and read about Nebbiolo while the sun set. I had created a life that was bent in service to all my personal cravings.
— Stephanie Danler, Sweetbitter
Autumn is coming. For as long as I can remember, I've talked to the moon. Asked her for her guidance. There's something deeply spiritual about her waxing and waning. She wears a new dress every evening, yet she's always herself.And she's always there.
— Stephanie Perkins, Lola and the Boy Next Door
Is there any place on earth that smells better than a Laundromat? It's like a rainy Sunday when you don't have to get out from under your covers, or like lying back on the grass your father's just mowed--comfort food for your nose.
— Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper
When Peter made mistakes, Wendy cheered for him anyway. One afternoon he beat her and everyone else in a race organized by Slightly. She only laughed and squeezed his wrist with easy affection and told him how fast he was. She was so undeterred by losing that it made the boys wonder if winning was exactly what they’d thought it was or if in England it was different.
— Jodi Lynn Anderson, Tiger Lily
If guilt can cause heartache, then I've definitely experienced it. Seeing Ivy hunched over and crying for probably the first time in her really long life is making me feel like the worst person in the world. With her tears streaked face in her hands, she looks so fragile, vulnerable, and human. I come forwards and give her a hug.
— Colleen Boyd, Swamp Angel
As I came closer, it took shape: long, slender, and curling, with numerous heart-shaped leaves. I felt my soul leap inside me. For Ivy's tree was now hung with her namesake. Jade-green ivy clutched the bark with such strength that, no matter how hard you pulled, it would never let go.I know I started crying
— Colleen Boyd, Swamp Angel
You could fill a catalog with all you long for - for him to come back, for a do-over, for a different ending in which not only were you strong and said good-bye but he lived and made a success of his life and decades later you could look back together on your twenties and laugh at all your follies, for his voice on the other end of the phone call, for one more of those Albuquerque nights when it was easy to fall asleep knowing he was just in the next room.
— Leigh Stein, Land of Enchantment
Tell me all of the things that make you feel at ease
— Troye Sivan