“If it is to have control of someone, let it be of yourself.”
“Most of us live in the illusion that we control our thoughts. However, in reality, the situation is quite the opposite.”
“The problem with most of us is that we relinquish that little bit of control that we have over our thoughts.We let our minds feed on whatever we come across on television and in social media, and do not pay any attention to the type of information that we are swallowing.”
“As individuals, we hardly have any control over the world. At best, what we can do is try controlling ourselves.”
“People will believe anything if it makes them think they have more control than they do in this world.”
“You have to control the circumstances and things in your life. They should not control you”
“There has never been a philosophy, a theory or a doctrine that attacked (or “limited”) reason, which did not also preach submission to the power of some authority.”
“Large or small, I always have a choice. But I also have a choice to think that I don’t have a choice.”
“Fear,’ he whispered. ‘There is nothing quite like it. I love how it looks, I love how it feels, I love how it smells. And I especially love the sound of it.’ I felt his tongue on my cheek. ‘I even love the taste of it”
“He settled himself with assurance behind the wheel and I climbed in beside him. As he turned the car away from the cathedral, and so out on to Rue Voltaire, he continued to enthuse in schoolboy fashion, murmuring, Magnificent, excellent! under his breath, obviously enjoying every moment of what soon turned out to be, from my own rather cautious standard, a hair-raising ride. When we had jumped one set of lights, and sent an old man, leaping for his life, and forced a large Buick driven by an infuriated American into the side of the street, he proceeded to circle the town in order, so he explained to try the car s pace. You know, he said, it amuses me enormously to use other people s possessions. It is one of life s great pleasures. I closed my eyes as we took another corner like a bob-sleigh.”
“Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you’re really doing it to them. Know what I mean? If someone wants to do fucked-up things to you, and you let them, you’re making them more fucked up. Then you have the control. As long as you don’t go crazy.”
“It was in those moments that I became one of them, one of the leavers. I m leaving and I m never coming back, I thought. It felt powerful. I finally felt in control. Is this how it felt to all the others. the leavers, the takers, the breakers? I became what they were. I could disappear. -The Art of Leaving”
“Perhaps the least understandable aspect of ally politics to me is the overwhelming tendency for people, who otherwise seem to aspire to relationships free of domination, to try to exert control over others. Is it because when we feel like we occupy the most legitimate or objectively most justified position (often according to a strangely quantitative evaluation of those who are most wronged by social oppressions), it is easy to inflate our sense of righteousness? Or is it that when we feel like we have the most information--or most connections to other important groups--we can make decisions for others better than they can make for themselves?”
“It s possible to name everything and to destroy the world.”
“We wanted her to see that the shadows that scared her could be beautiful and powerful when we learn how to take control of them,” Edaline added. Taking control. It sounded so simple. And so impossible.”
“I am destroying myself so other people can’t, she said, and it’s the worst kind of control but it’s the only form I know.”
“She s burning and out of control and everything I love about fire.”