David Viscott

“A home is a place in time. And no place stays the same after you finally grow up and leave it. No place can ever change as much as the person who grows up there.”

“Before you decide to have an argument, think about what you really want to accomplish. Do you just want to let your feelings out, or is there a point you are trying to make? What is it?”

“You must begin to think of yourself as becoming the person you want to be.”

“Lists have always implied social order.”

“This is really America in therapy, people trying to get themselves together and be whole.”

“People now feel time accelerating. Lists allow them to feel some sense of accomplishment.”

“The original lists were probably carved in stone and represented longer periods of time. They contained things like 'Get More Clay. Make Better Oven.'”

“Although everyone fights, few people know how to have a good argument, an argument that clears the air and makes it less likely a future argument will take place on the same subject.”

“Lists today are a way of trying to get through the day, because we are losing a sense of time.”

“To fail is a natural consequence of trying, To succeed takes time and prolonged effort in the face of unfriendly odds. To think it will be any other way, no matter what you do, is to invite yourself to be hurt and to limit your enthusiasm for trying again.”

“To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.”

“From time to time, everyone distorts. We all tend to believe what supports our side of the question and doubt what weakens it. When we are under stress, we tend to believe what we need to believe.”

“The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible.”

“If you could get up the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed.”

“The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The meaning of life is to give your gift away.”

“Each child should try to see in his parents the children they previously were. Each parent should try to see in his child the adult he seems to be becoming.”

“Most people of action are inclined to fatalism and most of thought believe in providence.”

“In the end, the only people who fail are those who do not try.”

“In other relationships, it may be permissible to overpower people, but not between people who are living together. That relationship is supposed to be between equals.”

“Though all afflictions are evils in themselves, yet they are good for us, because they discover to us our disease and tend to our cure.”