Storr Quotes

#1. I liked lots of 'Doctor Who' books, but my favourite tale was a spooky story about two invalid children - who've never met in the real world - who get trapped in a shared dreamscape when they fall asleep. It's called 'Marianne Dreams' by Catherine Storr.

Stephen Cole

#2. That solitude promotes insight as well as change," Storr continues, "has been recognized by the great religious leaders" - including the Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed - "who have usually retreated from the world before returning to it to share what has been revealed to them.

Joshua Wolf Shenk

#3. What distinguishes gurus from more orthodox teachers is not their manic-depressive mood swings, not their thought disorders, not their delusional beliefs, not their hallucinatory visions, not their mystical states of ecstasy: it is their narcissism.* ANTHONY STORR, FEET OF CLAY

Jon Krakauer

#4. Some split between the inner world and outer world is common to all behaviour, and the need to bridge the gap is the source of creative behaviour.

Anthony Storr

#5. The sane are madder than we think, the mad saner.

Anthony Storr

#6. Originality implies being bold enough to go beyond accepted norms.

Anthony Storr

#7. Whether a belief is considered to be a delusion or not depends partly upon the intensity with which it is defended, and partly upon the numbers of people subscribing to it.

Anthony Storr

#8. All the world loves a lover, and a lover loves all the world.

Anthony Storr

#9. the only thing necessary to trigger tribal behaviour in humans is the creation of two completely arbitrary groups. Leave them alone in a room and watch it all begin:

Will Storr

#10. So-called "inspiration" is no more than an extreme example of a process which constantly goes on in the minds of all of us.

Anthony Storr

#11. Since I was not able wholly to subscribe to any one set of beliefs advanced by any 'guru' I had to fall back on my own, however derivative.

Anthony Storr

#12. The human spirit is not indestructible; but a courageous few discover that, when in hell, they are granted a glimpse of heaven.

Anthony Storr

#13. The capacity to form attachments on equal terms is considered evidence of emotional maturity. It is the absence of this capacity which is pathological. Whether there may be other criteria of emotional maturity, like the capacity to be alone, is seldom taken into account.

Anthony Storr

#14. We typically have a bias that tells us we are less susceptible to bias than everyone else.

Will Storr

#15. Exposure to a mixed body of evidence made both sides even more convinced of the fundamental soundness of their original beliefs.' Confirmation bias is profoundly human and it is appalling. When new information leads to an increase in ignorance, it is the opposite of learning, the death of wisdom.

Will Storr

#16. It's not psychopathology that counts. It's what you do with it.

Anthony Storr

#17. Inspiration cannot be willed, though it can be wooed.

Anthony Storr

#18. It is a tragic paradox that the very qualities that have led to man's extraordinary capacity for success are also those most likely to destroy him.

Anthony Storr

#19. Imagination flourishes best in solitude.

Anthony Storr

#20. Part of what we admire about a painting or a piece of music is the order which the artist has imposed upon what would otherwise have appeared disconnected or chaotic.

Anthony Storr

#21. The professional must learn to be moved and touched emotionally, yet at the same time stand back objectively: I've seen a lot of damage done by tea and sympathy.

Anthony Storr

#22. Intelligence is no protection against strange beliefs.

Will Storr

#23. The creative consequences of man's imaginative strivings may never make him whole; but they constitute his deepest consolations and his greatest glories.

Anthony Storr

#24. I know that I am not right about everything, and yet I am simultaneously convinced that I am. I believe these two things completely, and yet they are in catastrophic logical opposition to each other.

Will Storr

#25. It is only when we no longer compulsively need someone that we can have a real relationship with them.

Anthony Storr

#26. It is widely believed that interpersonal relationships of an intimate kind are the chief, if not the only, source of human happiness. Yet the lives of creative individuals often seem to run counter to this assumption.

Anthony Storr

#27. One man's faith is another man's delusion

Anthony Storr

#28. I get intrigued by a puzzle, and writing a book is the best way to solve it.

Anthony Storr

#29. It may be our idealization of interpersonal relationships in the West that causes marriage, supposedly the most intimate tie, to be so unstable. If we did not look to marriage as the principal source of happiness, fewer marriages would end in tears.

Anthony Storr

#30. I want to show that the dividing lines between sanity and mental illness have been drawn in the wrong place.

Anthony Storr

#31. who seeks shall find; Who sits with folded hands or sleeps is blind.

Francis Storr

#32. Had [Winston Churchill] been a stable and equable man, he could never have inspired the nation. In 1940, when all the odds were against Britain, a leader of sober judgment might well have concluded that we were finished.

Anthony Storr

#33. When a man suffers from delusions he is described as mad but when a million do so they belong to a world religion

Anthony Storr

#34. In a culture in which interpersonal relationships are generally considered to provide the answer to every form of distress, it is sometimes difficult to persuade well-meaning helpers that solitude can be as therapeutic as emotional support.

Anthony Storr

#35. I owed Lewis one thing, at least. Once you had suffered the experience of presenting a case at one of his Monday morning conferences, no other public appearance, whether on radio, TV or the lecture platform, could hold any terrors for you.

Anthony Storr

#36. we go through our social lives convinced that everything we are saying, doing and feeling is being closely examined by those around us even though, in reality, they are all preoccupied with themselves, equally convinced the spotlight is on them.

Will Storr

#37. Idiosyncratic belief systems which are shared by only a few adherents are likely to be regarded as delusional. Belief systems which may be just as irrational but which are shared by millions are called world religions.

Anthony Storr

#38. With the exception of certain rodents, no other vertebrate except Homo sapiens habitually destroys members of his own species.

Anthony Storr

#39. We build our understanding of the emotional world through the myths and legends of our culture. We are all, in part, made of fairy tales.

Will Storr