Theodor Reik

“The repressed memory is like a noisy intruder being thrown out of the concert hall. You can throw him out, but he will bang on the door and continue to disturb the concert. The analyst opens the door and says, If you promise to behave yourself, you can come back in.”

“The fear to love reaches sometimes the depth of a panic, resembles sometimes the fear to die.”

“Work and love; these are the basics. Without them there is neurosis.”

“Love is an attempt to change a piece of a dream world into reality.”

“We are all in a race for dear life: that is to say, we are fugitives from death.”

“Nothing said to us, nothing we can learn from others, reaches us so deep as that which we find in ourselves.”

“The man who has never made a fool of himself in love will never be wise in love.”

“In our civilization, men are afraid that they will not be men enough and women are afraid that they might be considered only women.”

“…if you cannot hate you cannot love. If you cannot bite you can not kiss. If you cannot curse you cannot bless. Who cannot be a good hater will be a poor lover.”

“Women in general want to be loved for what they are and men for what they accomplish.”

“It was strange to find that love does not spring from abundance and richness of the ego, but is a way out of inner distress and poverty. We were surprised to discover that our first love is not directed either to another person or to ourselves, but to an imaginary ideal ego, to an image of ourselves as we would like to be. There are stranger discoveries awaiting us the more deeply we grope in the dark and the further we intrude into the secret places of the human heart.”

“The lover is a monotheist who knows that other people worship different gods but cannot himself imagine that there could be other gods.”

“He who licks his wounds cannot be affectionate”