Erving Polster Quotes

#1. The field as a whole is defined as a system of deviations on different levels and nothing, either in the institutions or in the agents, the acts or discourses they produce, has meaning except relationally, by virtue of the interplay of oppositions and distinctions.

Pierre Bourdieu

#2. A new question for the psychotherapist to ask is whether a theory can go beyond mere effectiveness in achieving either a so-called cure or even personal growth into its implications for the nature of an evolving society.

Erving Polster

#3. Leah moaned. Not in pain, but in a "oooh, someone's getting fucked soon and I hope it's me" way.

Tymber Dalton

#4. Therapy is too good to be limited to the sick.

Erving Polster

#5. In depression, you're flattened. Your energy level is gone. When I'm anxious, I tend to have more energy. But it depends on the nature of the anxiety. The anxiety to finish something would seem to be more productive than the anxiety that says, "You're feeling sick."

Lynne Tillman

#6. It had never occurred to me before that music and thinking are so much alike. In fact you could say music is another way of thinking, or maybe thinking is another kind of music.

Ursula K. Le Guin

#7. I chose this path for solitude, not realizing the the hobo life is a very sociable lifestyle...

G. Johanson

#8. The paradox is that, while a concern with past and future is obviously central to psychological functioning, to behave as though one were indeed in the past or future, as many do, pollutes the lively possibilities of existence.

Erving Polster

#9. Theory and knowledge remain suspect, not because of inherent worthlessness, but because of their historic isolation from action. Without theoretical orientation, however, action is vulnerable to oversimplified and glib imitativeness-even mimicry-and to the use of the gimmick.

Erving Polster

#10. Maybe I'd be a storyboard artist. Graphic novel/comic book artist. Backup dancer. Singer. It would be cool to focus on one of these full time. But I like seeing them all intertwine.

Jade Hassoune

#11. Our deeds are not the basis of our salvation, they are the evidence of our salvation. They are not foundation, they are demonstration.

John Piper

#12. Fascination is a key to productivity; it unites experiences; it is even its own reward.

Erving Polster

#13. Time rises and rises, and when it reaches the level of your eyes you drown.

Margaret Atwood

#14. We want to hear the story first and let the meaning unfold, rather than to be present with expectations of a certain significance into which all behavior is then fitted.

Erving Polster

#15. Aside from the basic African dialects, I would try to learn Chinese, because it looks as if Chinese will be the most powerful political language of the future.

Malcolm X