"We can't change the past, so we change how people are thinking, feeling and behaving today."

"The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny."

"There's no evidence whatsoever that men are more rational than women. Both sexes seem to be equally irrational."

"Eating is always a decision, nobody forces your hand to pick up food and put it into your mouth."

"The concept of deservingness for one’s “sins” implies that certain acts are unquestionably under all conditions “sinful.” And this is impossible to prove."

"Much of what we call emotion is nothing more or less than a certain kind - a biased, prejudiced, or strongly evaluative kind - of thought."

"Freudian therapists do a lot of listening and very little persuading, and that was one of the reasons I eventually gave up being an analyst. You had to be too passive and not speak up, and you couldn't give homework to clients. While I was still an analyst, I wrote several articles criticizing psychoanalysis, but the analysts weren't listening to my objections. So I finally quit psychoanalysis after practicing it for six years."

"People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware."

"I had used eclectic therapy and behavior therapy on myself at the age of 19 to get over my fear of public speaking and of approaching young women in public."

"Unless, of course, you insist on identifying yourself with the people and things you love; and thereby seriously disturb yourself."

"I think it's unfair, but they have the right as fallible, screwed-up humans to be unfair; that's the human condition."

"People could rationally decide that prolonged relationships take up too much time and effort and that they'd much rather do other kinds of things. But most people are afraid of rejection."

"The individual is taught that there is nothing that he as a total person is to feel ashamed of or self-hating for."

"Whenever you avoid alarming situations, you almost always increase your anxiety about them."

"We teach people that they upset themselves. We can't change the past, so we change how people are thinking, feeling and behaving today."

"By not caring too much about what people think, I'm able to think for myself and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular. And I succeed."

"If something is irrational, that means it won't work. It's usually unrealistic."

"People got insights into what was bothering them, but they hardly did a damn thing to change."

"You have only to exist as you do and to live your life as best you can."

"The goal of all life is to have a ball."

"Let's suppose somebody abused you sexually. You still had a choice, though not a good one, about what to tell yourself about the abuse."

"Most things worth having require some sacrifice, usually more than you expect."

"Insight will help you very little."

"Too many people are unaware that it is not outer events or circumstances that will create happiness; rather, it is our perception of events and of ourselves that will create, or uncreate, positive emotions."

"For many years now I have had the quaint idea that all humans-yes, the whole six billion of them on this planet-are out of their fucking minds."

"Spirit and soul is horseshit of the worst sort. Obviously there are no fairies, no Santa Clauses, no spirits. What there is, is human goals and purposes as noted by sane existentialists. But a lot of transcendentalists are utter screwballs."

"My rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) was one of the very few therapies that was originated partly or largely because I wanted to be brief and efficient. And therefore right from the start I was active and directive. I tried to show people some central masturbatory core to their philosophy and to get them to work at changing it cognitively, emotionally and behaviorally."

"There is no relationship. Women, like men, women, children, babies hamsters. This is the Google Translate of the quote in Persian, above."

"This perhaps is what is meant by hiraeth: a lifelong yearning for what is gona and out of reach."

"When a person implores you to be reasonable what he means is that you should speed round forthwith to his point of view."

"Those who live on vanity must, not unreasonably, expect to die of mortification."

"Claudia's the sort of girl who goes through life holding onto the sides."