Neurosis Quotes

Religion [is] the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity

Religion: Something comparable to childhood neurosis

We have wandered into a state of prolonged neurosis because of the absence of a direct pipeline to the unconscious and we have then fallen victim to priestcraft of every conceivable sort.

I have never felt that the primary use of these things was to cure what is called in modern parlance neurosis, what I call unhappiness. It isn't for that.

I've done it with all my films. I always keep an eye on the first time I show it because... I don't know. Neurosis.

I am looking for the novelists whose writing is an extension of their intellect rather than an extension of their neurosis.

But the center can be a harmful place for one who has lived so long on the edge.... Normality is the Great Neurosis of civilization.

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.

While writing is like a joyful release, editing is a prison where the bars are my former intentions and the abusive warden my own neuroticism.

The fact that compulsive drives for success will arise only in a competitive culture does not make them any less neurotic.

Old Scully, who according to Jennifer, hadn't the imagination to think the worst. Something she said once, as though neurosis was an artform.

[T]he accumulation of things not spelled out, not properly articulated, may result in neurosis.

The tenacity with which the neurotic adheres to any attitude is a sure indication that the attitude fulfills functions which seem indispensable in the framework of his neurosis.

Pride and self-hate belong inseparably together

The pride in intellect, or rather in the supremacy of the mind, is not restricted to those engaged in intellectual pursuits but is a regular occurrence in all neurosis.

The demons are not easily dispatched, instead attaching themselves to otherwise beautiful things, a favorite food or a love note left for you, to see how you react when they rear up.

Well, aren't you just saying it's better to be neurotic, sensitive, and miserable than unimaginative, adjusted and content? Is it really better?

...for in that city [New York] there is neurosis in the air which the inhabitants mistake for energy.

[Judith Warner:] Our neurotic quest to perfect the mechanics of mothering can be interpreted as an effort to do on an individual level what we’ve stopped trying to do on a society-wide one.