Denial is also the instinctual impulse to reject or discount information that calls into question our hopes, assumptions, or expectations about the future.

We express denial in our lives when we avoid certain people or issues and when we see things only as we want them to be rather than to accept them as they are. Underneath every denial pattern is the underlying fear that we will not be able to handle conflict and a deep human need to maintain peace, balance, and harmony at all costs. In deep denial we will abandon ourselves to keep the peace rather than communicate our feelings directly. (p81)

Denial can be confusing because it resembles sleeping. We’re not really aware we’re doing it until we’re done doing it. Forcing ourselves — or anyone else — to face the truth usually doesn’t help. We won’t face the facts until we are ready. Neither, it seems, will anyone else. We may admit to the truth for a moment, but we won’t let ourselves know what we know until we feel safe, secure, and prepared enough to deal and cope with it.

Denial is a critical part of the human coping mechanism. Without it, we would all wake up terrified every morning about all the ways we could die. Instead, our minds block out our existential fears by focusing on stresses we can handle — like getting to work on time or paying our taxes. If we have wider, existential fears, we jettison them very quickly, refocusing on simple tasks and daily trivialities.

The purpose of denial is to destroy truth and memory. The denial of the genocide against the Tutsi causes the gravest offence to survivors.

Denial gets a bad wrap, because denial is instinctual.

Denying oneself is an indulgence. The indulgence of denying is by far the worst; it forces us to believe that we are doing great things, when in effect we are only fixed within ourselves.

Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego.

just because you believe something doesn’t make it true. Denial is the ultimate comfort zone.

When we perpetually allow the practice of genocide and holocaust and consent to the denial of such actions to linger for decades as in the case of the Assyrian, Armenian and Pontic Greek Genocides, we are in essence consenting to denial as a compromise. Denial is not compromise.

Genocide denial is a dangerous and deliberate attempt to block the truth.

Delay is the deadliest form of denial.

In order to protect our emotional wounds, and because of our fear of being hurt, humans create something very sophisticated in the mind: a big denial system. In that denial system we become the perfect liars. We lie so perfectly that we lie to ourselves and we even believe our own lies. We don’t notice we are lying, and sometimes even when we know we are lying, we justify the lie and excuse the lie to protect ourselves from the pain of our wounds. The denial system is like a wall of fog in front of our eyes that blinds us from seeing the truth. We wear a social mask because it’s too painful to see ourselves or to let others see us as we really are. And the denial system lets us pretend that everyone believes what we want them to believe about us. We put up these barriers for protection, to keep other people away,

Denial is an ugly thing, Nicky. I'm not in denial. See what I mean? That's denial.