Whoever authors your story authorizes your actions. - Sam Keen

Our inner dialogue is frequently composed of old tape loops that we run again and again... The normal personality marshals sufficient defense mechanisms to exclude dangerous and unknown stimuli and just enough windows to let in an occasional wandering minstrel. Neurotic identity crises come when our defense mechanisms have been too successful and we're encapsulated in the fortress we have constructed with nothing to refresh us in our solitary confinement. So we play the old movies with their stale fears and their unrealistic hopes until we become bored enough to risk disarmament and engagement.

If you live out of a negative identity, … others will always be cast in the mold of the enemy against whom you must struggle.

The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. — RALPH SOCKMAN