“I think living well is the key: trying not to build up regrets for the things we didn't do in our lives; to try to live a regret-free life in which we feel satisfied in what we're doing; and to try to be kind to ourselves and not disappointed in ourselves.”
— Irvin D. Yalom
“What an existential approach is about is positing that our bad feelings, our dysphoria, our despair, our anxiety emanates not only from our own life history and all the traumas we may have had in the past, and not only from the figures that we have introjected — many of these figures being unloving, or uncaring, or neurotic on their own parts — and emanates not only from our current life crises, but it emanates also, also, from our confrontation with the existential facts of life, with our confrontation with the human condition.”
— Irvin D. Yalom
“I believe that, though illusion often cheers and comforts, it ultimately and invariably weakens and constricts the spirit.”
— Irvin D. Yalom
“If one is to love oneself one must behave in ways that one can admire.”
— Irvin D. Yalom
“To the extent that one is responsible for one's life, one is alone.”
— Irvin D. Yalom
“It's not easy to live every moment wholly aware of death. It's like trying to stare the sun in the face: you can stand only so much of it. Because we cannot live frozen in fear, we generate methods to soften death's terror. We project ourselves into the future through our children; we grow rich, famous, ever larger; we develop compulsive protective rituals; or we embrace an impregnable belief in an ultimate rescuer.”
— Irvin D. Yalom
“The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.”
— Irvin D. Yalom
“Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.”
— Irvin D. Yalom