{"author":"Irvin D. Yalom","author_id":"Irvin+D.+Yalom","total_quotes":34,"quotes":[{"text":"Upon learning that her cancer had spread to her spine, Paula prepared her thirteen year-old son for her death by writing him a letter of farewell that moved me to years. In her final paragraph she reminded him that the lungs in the human fetus do not breathe, nor do it's eyes see. Thus, the embryo is being prepared for an existence it cannot yet imagine.","author":"Irvin D. Yalom","tags":["death-and-dying","life","psychology"],"id":6739,"author_id":"Irvin+D.+Yalom"},{"text":"The freedom of an unscheduled afternoon brought confusion rather than joy. Julius had always been focused. When he was not seeing patients, other important projects and activities-writing, teaching, tennis, research-clamored for his attention. But today nothing seemed important. He suspected that nothing had ever been important, that his mind had arbitrarily imbued projects with importance and then cunningly covered its traces. Today he saw through the ruse of a lifetime. Today there was nothing important to do, and he ambled aimlessly down Union Street.","author":"Irvin D. Yalom","tags":["philosophy","psychology","psychotherapy","schopenhauer"],"id":21897,"author_id":"Irvin+D.+Yalom"},{"text":"More than death, one fears the utter isolation that accompanies it. We try to go through life two by two, but each one of us must die alone- no one can die our death with us or for us. The shunning of the dying by the living prefigures final absolute abandonment.","author":"Irvin D. Yalom","tags":["death","life","meaning","psychology"],"id":37682,"author_id":"Irvin+D.+Yalom"},{"text":"I always imagined that you might write something about me. I wanted to leave an imprint on your life. I don’t want to be “just another patient”. I wanted to be “special”. I want to be something, anything. I feel like nothing, no one. If I left an imprint on your life, maybe I would be someone, someone you wouldn’t forget. I’d exist then. (Marge’s letter to Yalom).","author":"Irvin D. Yalom","tags":["existence","existential","psychology","remembrance","self-esteem"],"id":65085,"author_id":"Irvin+D.+Yalom"},{"text":"We're not teaching our students the importance of relationships with other people: how you work with them, what the relational pathology consists of, how you examine your own conscience, how you examine the inner world, how you examine your dreams.","author":"Irvin D. Yalom","tags":["work","your dreams","world "],"id":67618,"author_id":"Irvin+D.+Yalom"},{"text":"You will search the world over and not find a nonsuperstitious community. As long as there is ignorance, there will be adherence to superstition. Dispelling ignorance is the only solution. That is why I teach.","author":"Irvin D. Yalom","tags":["teaching"],"id":114027,"author_id":"Irvin+D.+Yalom"},{"text":"It is wrong to bear children out of need, wrong to use a child to alleviate loneliness, wrong to provide purpose in life by reproducing another copy of oneself. It is wrong also to seek immortality by spewing one's germ into the future as though sperm contains your consciousness!","author":"Irvin D. Yalom","tags":["children","future","immortality","life","procreation"],"id":123158,"author_id":"Irvin+D.+Yalom"},{"text":"Psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish. Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I'm still learning.","author":"Irvin D. Yalom","tags":["medicine","psychiatry","self-understanding"],"id":138183,"author_id":"Irvin+D.+Yalom"},{"text":"Religion has everything on its side: revelation, prophecies, government protection, the highest dignity and eminence...And more than this, the invaluable prerogative of being allowed to imprint its doctrines on the mind at a tender age of childhood, whereby they become almost innate ideas.","author":"Irvin D. Yalom","tags":["religion"],"id":152039,"author_id":"Irvin+D.+Yalom"},{"text":"Marriage and its entourage of possession and jealousy enslave the spirit.","author":"Irvin D. Yalom","tags":["enslavement","jealousy","marriage","possession"],"id":154294,"author_id":"Irvin+D.+Yalom"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":34,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}