Ambivalent Quotes

• It is only when parental feelings are ineffective or too ambivalent or when the mother's emotions are temporarily engaged elsewhere that children feel lost.

  Anna Freud

  Mother, Children, Feelings

  Anna Freud, Dorothy T. Burlingham (1967). “The Writings of Anna Freud: Indications for child analysis and other papers, 1945-1956”

  37 Copy quote

  Show source

• Americans have always had an ambivalent attitude toward intelligence. When they feel threatened, they want a lot of it, and when they don't, they regard the whole thing as somewhat immoral.

  Vernon A. Walters

  Attitude, Want, Feels

  7 Copy quote

• The more ambivalent you are and the more uncertain you are, then you can get something that you cannot anticipate.

  Elia Kazan

  Uncertain, Anticipate

  9 Copy quote

• Being ambivalent doesn't mean that you're a relevatist, that anything goes; it just means that you show the complexity of life. Life is always complex.

  Etgar Keret

  Mean, Anything Goes, Life Is

  "Parables of anarchy". Interview With Hephzibah Anderson, www.theguardian.com. February 12, 2005.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• We all have ambivalent feelings toward work ... We try to avoid it, and yet we seem to require it for our emotional well-being.

  Samuel Florman

  Work, Emotional, Feelings

  7 Copy quote

• Throughout my life, I have grappled with my own identity, who I am. As a young child, I often felt ambivalent about myself; in fact, confused.

  James McGreevey

  Children, Confused, Who I Am

  "McGreevey Describes 'Intensely Personal Decision' in Speech". James McGreevey's speech televised live from Trenton, www.nytimes.com. August 12, 2004.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Although I'm certainly glad cartoons are finally getting some respect as an art, I'm fairly ambivalent to see cartooning as a legitimate academic offering. If comics need to be deconstructed and explained, something is really wrong with them.

  Bill Watterson

  Art, Offering, Needs

  Source: www.annistonstar.com

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I don't know that I've ever been completely comfortable with anything.

  Shannon Elizabeth

  Knows, Comfortable

  6 Copy quote

• Plenty of people who survive tragedies end up ambivalent about danger--frightened by it, yet strangely drawn to it.

  Keith Ablow

  Fear, People, Tragedy

  6 Copy quote

• I've always been profoundly ambivalent about fame. I think it just eats the reality out of you and it can be intoxicating because I like some of it.

  Jane Pauley

  Thinking, Reality, Fame

  "Jane Pauley Says Goodbye". Interview with Barbara Walters, abcnews.go.com. May 30.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Siblings may be ambivalent about their relationships in life, but in death the power of their bond strangles the surviving heart. Death reminds us that we are part of the same river, the same flow from the same source, rushing towards the same destiny. Were you close? Yes, but we didn't know it then.

  Barbara Ascher

  Sibling, Heart, Destiny

  5 Copy quote

• It's time to "stop being ambivalent." ... They (groups like the Islamic State) have no ideology beyond violence and chaos and the slaughter of innocent people.

  Barack Obama

  Islamic, People, Groups

  4 Copy quote

• His version of 'real' love isn't sufficient for me, I don't think anyone should settle for so little. It wasn't love - not in the true sense. On my part, it was neediness, insecurity, dependence, habit - desperate to feel loved by a man who was often ambivalent towards me. 

  Freya North

  Real, Men, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• Visiting is a pleasure; being visited is usually a mixed or ambivalent joy. ... The visitor can always go home; the visitee is already home, trapped like a rat in a drainpipe.

  Barbara Holland

  Home, Joy, Rats

  7 Copy quote

• What does it mean then to live with one another? It can be unhappy, it can be wretched, it can be ambivalent, it can even be full of antagonism, but all of that can play out in the political sphere without recourse to expulsion or genocide. And that is our obligation, to stay in the sphere with whatever murderous rage we have, without acting on it.

  Judith Butler

  Mean, Play, Political

  Source: www.opendemocracy.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If I've been accused a number of times of writing plays where the endings are ambivalent, indeed, that's the way I find life.

  Edward Albee

  Writing, Play, Numbers

  Edward Albee, Philip C. Kolin (1988). “Conversations with Edward Albee”, p.57, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Real love isn't ever ambivalent.

  Tony Kushner

  Real, Love Is, Angels In America

  "Angels in America". www.imdb.com. 2003.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am ambivalent about London because I am so ambivalent about England in general.

  Jane Jacobs

  London, England

  Source: www.metropolismag.com

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  Attitude, War, America

  "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives". Book by Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1997.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• No matter where you are in your life, whatever set of people you're with, it all still breaks down like high school does. You have your social cliques, you have the people you get along with, the people you don't and the people you're ambivalent about. All of the dynamics are still here.

  Colin Hanks

  School, People, Doe

  "Colin Hanks gets 'Lucky' with killer film, TV show". Interview with Zorianna Kit, www.reuters.com. July 15, 2011.

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sometimes compromise is important. Sometimes it's better to give in to someone else's wishes in order to have fun as a group or as a couple, or for the benefit of the team. Sometimes compromise is dangerous. We need to guard against compromising our standards to gain the approval or love of someone else. Decide when you can, and when you cannot, compromise. If it's not harmful and you are ambivalent about a decision, then compromise. If it could lead to breaking your values, compromise isn't a good idea.

  Melody Beattie

  Couple, Fun, Team

  Melody Beattie (2009). “More Language of Letting Go: 366 New Daily Meditations”, p.4, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• We all parent the best we can. Being human, we're ambivalent. We want perfection for our babies, but we also need sleep.

  Erica Jong

  Baby, Sleep, Perfection

  7 Copy quote

• I'd like to see a much more open Monarchy, myself. I used to think they were completely useless and we should get rid of them. I don't necessarily feel that way anymore. I'm still ambivalent, I still loathe the British class system, and the Royal family are the apex of the British class system.

  Helen Mirren

  Thinking, Class System, Royal

  17 Copy quote

• You hated him in the movies! Now you're ambivalent.

  Steve Higgins

  Hated

  "Jimmy Fallon: The New King of Late Night TV" by Jeanne Marie Laskas, www.gq.com. March 20, 2013.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• America is a nation fundamentally ambivalent about its children, often afraid of its children, and frequently punitive toward its children.

  Letty Cottin Pogrebin

  Children, America, Rehabilitation

  Letty Cottin Pogrebin (1983). “Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier”, McGraw-Hill Companies

  4 Copy quote

  Show source