Quotes by Alice Miller

“Without realizing that the past is constantly determining their present actions, they avoid learning anything about their history. They continue to live in their repressed childhood situation, igno...”

“This story sounds as though it were invented, but it is true from beginning to end. There are people who have to pay for the smallest things in life with their very substance and their spinal cord....”

“Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery and emotional acceptance of the truth in the individual and unique his...”

“Genuine feelings cannot be produced, nor can they be eradicated. We can only repress them, delude ourselves, and deceive our bodies. The body sticks to the facts.”

“Narcissistic cathexis of the child by the mother does not exclude emotional devotion. On the contrary, she loves the child as her self-object, excessively, though not in the manner that he needs, a...”

“Not to take one's own suffering seriously, to make light of it or even to laugh at it, is considered good manners in our culture.”

“A human being born into a cold, indifferent world will regard his situation as the only possible one.”

“Cruelty is the opposite of love, and its traumatic effect, far from being reduced, is actually reinforced if it is presented as a sign of love.”

“The public forum is not, of course, the most helpful place to conduct a profitable confrontation with one's parents. If we are to allow the feelings of childhood to be revived, we need an enlighten...”

“For the human soul is virtually indestructible, and its ability to rise from the ashes remains as long as the body draws breath.”

“Today it is hardly possible for any group to remain so isolated from others who have different values. Therefore it is necessary today for the individual to find support within himself. . . This st...”

“Where there had been only fearful emptiness or equally frightening grandiose fantasies, an unexpected wealth of vitality is now discovered. This is not a homecoming, since this home has never befor...”

“Once upon a time there was a child who had a golden brain. His parents only discovered this by chance when he injured his head and gold instead of blood flowed out. They then began to look after hi...”

“Child abuse is still sanctioned indeed, held in high regard in our society as long as it is defined as child-rearing. It is a tragic fact that parents beat their children in order to escape the e...”

“All children are born to grow, to develop, to live, to love, and to articulate their needs and feelings for their self-protection.”

“We don't yet know, above all, what the world might be like if children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, if parents would respect them and take them seriously as people.”

“I've spoken of the patient Peter who was obsessively forced to make conquests with women, to seduce and then to abandon them, until he was at last able to experience how he himself had repeatedly b...”

“To forget and to repress would be a good solution if there were no more to it than that. But repressed pain blocks emotional life and leads to physical symptoms. And the worst thing is that althoug...”

“What is addiction, really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood.”

“The more we idealized the past, however, and refuse to acknowledge or childhood sufferings, the more we pass them on unconsciously to the next generation.”