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Book: Creatures of a Day: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy
Quotes of Book: Creatures of a Day: And Other
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  1. Irvin D. Yalom _ Creatures of a Day: And Other

    Too many people are overly respectful, braying, 'You're so brave' and Irv fell smack into that trap. After all what's so courageous about having cancer? Once we have it, what choice do we have? But the worst thing of all-and thank God Irv doesn't do this, at least not yet-is all this nonsensical talk about a patient's courageous struggle with cancer that all too often ends in defeat. How many obituaries do you see stating that so-and-so lost their courageous battle with cancer? I hate that! I absolutely hate it! If someone put that in my obituary, I'd come back and kill him!
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  2. Irvin D. Yalom _ Creatures of a Day: And Other

    sex as the vital antagonist to death-isn't the orgasm the primal spark of life? I know of many instances in which sexual feelings arise in order to neutralize fears of death.
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  3. Irvin D. Yalom _ Creatures of a Day: And Other

    It's often pretty hard to speak to others about my cancer. I have a number of pet peeves. Many folks are overly solicitous. They can't do enough for you. There's that Kaiser nurse who keeps asking "Isn't there someone who can drive you here?" And some people are too prying. I think they are voyeuristic and attempt to satisfy their morbid curiosity about having cancer. I don't like that and have sometimes wanted to say, "Go get your own damn fatal illness.
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  4. Irvin D. Yalom _ Creatures of a Day: And Other

    All I can do in one session is to be real, to leap into the patient's life, to offer observations in the hope that he'll be able to open doors and explore some new parts of himself in his ongoing therapy.
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  5. Irvin D. Yalom _ Creatures of a Day: And Other

    I'm not ready for a committed relationship with anyone and that I have a ton of work to do on myself.
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  6. Irvin D. Yalom _ Creatures of a Day: And Other

    My work is to love my body, all of it. Whole and entire. The whole aging mortal troublesome failing miraculous intricate breathing doomed cancerous warm mortifying unreliable hard-working imperfect beautiful appalling living struggling tender frightened frightening living dying living breathing temporary wondrous mystifying afflicted mortally-ill assemblage of the atoms of the universe that is my self, is me, for this space of time.
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  7. Irvin D. Yalom _ Creatures of a Day: And Other

    if it weren't for errant passion, death, despair, and loss, the great bulk of art would never have been born.
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  8. Irvin D. Yalom _ Creatures of a Day: And Other

    What has been given is a new perspective on living life, and what has been taken away is the illusion of limitless life and the belief in a personal specialness exempting us from natural law.
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  9. Irvin D. Yalom _ Creatures of a Day: And Other

    All of us are creatures of a day; the rememberer and the remembered alike. All is ephemeral-both memory and the object of memory. The time is at hand when you will have forgotten everything; and the time is at hand when all will have forgotten you. Always reflect that soon you will be no one, and nowhere.
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  10. Irvin D. Yalom _ Creatures of a Day: And Other

    As Nietzsche said, "If we have our own 'why' of life, we shall get along with any 'how.
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  11. Irvin D. Yalom _ Creatures of a Day: And Other

    Whether I will live a long time or a short time, I'm alive now, at this moment. What I want is to know that there are other things to hope for besides length of life. What I want to know is that it isn't necessary to turn away from thoughts of suffering or death but neither is it necessary to give these thoughts too much time and space. What I want is to be intimate with the knowledge that life is temporary. And then, in the light {or shadow} of that knowledge, to know how to live. How to live now.
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