“I realize the simple truth is that power isn’t control at all- power is strength, and giving that strength to others. A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others so that they may have the strength to stand on their own.”
“We all have control over what kind of person we are. Each word that comes out, each action that we take, defines us.”
“My sister said Mary Elizabeth is suffering from low self-esteem, but I told her that she said the same thing about Sam back in November when she started dating Craig, and Sam is completely different. Everything can t be low self-esteem, can it? My sister tried to clarify things. She said that by introducing me to all these great things, Mary Elizabeth gained a superior position that she wouldn t need if she was confident about herself. She also said that people who try to control situations all the time are afraid that if they don t, nothing will work out the way they want.”
“Don t be a creation of circumstances, create your dreams, take full control of your destiny.”
“The real problem is I m greedy. I want complete, utter, unceasing bliss. But I don t want to fall into it either. If happiness were money I wouldn t want to win the lottery. I want to accomplish it, urn it as John Houseman would say. I want it to be an achievement because I want to be in control of my life. I don t want things to happen to me, I want them to happen because of me. Power I want. I want to feel the way I do when I stretch a new canvas and I want to feel that way all the time. the blank canvas fills me with the power of imminent creation. I m its god an it always bends to my will and when I m done I know, inside, that it s markedly better than what almost all of my similarly-engaged others can achieve. That s happiness.”
“Challenge who you can be, don t let fate control your future. Fate can come to rule your life if you don t decide for yourselves exactly what you want. It fills in the bits like a mischievous mistress.”
“Love. It seemed impossible that she could love him, but she was so deep in him there was really nowhere to go but further in. So this is what love was. Uncontrollable. Consuming. But so irresistible you wanted to be consumed.”
“Does the brain control you or are you controlling the brain?”
“All defensiveness stems from the need to be right and frustration over not being able to control others.”
“When you release yourself from the need for approval and control you can stop punishing yourself and others.”
“The chronicle of a man, the account of his life, his historiography, written as he lived out his life formed part of the rituals of his power. The disciplinary methods reversed this relation, lowered the threshold of describable individuality and made of this description a means of control and a method of domination.”
“Ironically, we often spend a great deal of time and effort trying to control our external conditions, while letting our internal reactions run wild.”
“to Vaneigem and the Situationists who by shrewd use of collage and juxtaposition exposed both the poverty and richness of slogans, and the thinly veiled hypocrisy of a spectacular society which by not respecting words abuses people, and by insulting the intelligence creates a state of political cretinisation in which the many and various forms of authoritarian control dominate.”
“When you release the illusion of control, you begin an effortless free-fall toward a grand reunion with your original self.”
“Western freedom is a sophisticated form of control.”
“there was a time when this home was her domain. Sometimes she felt proud of it, sometimes she felt tied to it, but whether it was a burden or a blessing, it was hers to keep. She’d known better than anyone what this house needed; lately it’d become one of the few aspects of her life she could control. there is no corner, no ridge along the steps or crack along the wall, that she doesn’t know like her own body. the house may never have been the sanctuary she’d always dreamed of, but at least it carried no surprises. It was comfortable.”
“Control is the basis of all true power. Authority and strength are matters of perception”