Mechanism Quotes - Page 3

• When anesthesia was developed, it was for many decades routinely withheld from women giving birth, since women were "supposed" to suffer. One of the few societies to take a contrary view was the Huichol tribe in Mexico. The Huichol believed that the pain of childbirth should be shared, so the mother would hold on to a string tied to her husband's testicles. With each painful contraction, she would give the string a yank so that the man could share the burden. Surely if such a mechanism were more widespread, injuries in childbirth would garner more attention.

  Nicholas D. Kristof

  Mother, Husband, Pain

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• For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see that the world is barely there at all. Don't we all secretly know this? It's a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark.

  Stephen King

  Loss, Dark, Gun

  Stephen King (2016). “11/22/63: A Novel”, p.791, Simon and Schuster

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• Sorrow comes with so many defense mechanisms. You have your shock, your denial, your getting wasted, your cracking jokes, and your religion. You also have the old standby catchall—the blind belief in fate, the whole "things happening for a reason" drill.

  Emily Giffin

  Fate, Blind Belief, Sorrow

  Emily Giffin (2010). “Baby Proof: A Novel”, p.49, Macmillan

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• If you are deemed insane, then all actions that would oherwise prove you are not do, in actuality, fall into the framework of an insane person’s actions. Your sound protests constitute denial. Your valid fears are deemed paranoia. Your survival instincts are labeled defense mechanisms. It’s a no-win situation. It’s a death penalty really.

  Dennis Lehane

  Fall, Winning, Insane Person

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• Had it taken her this long to discover that she lacked some simple mental trick that everyone else had, a mechanism so ordinary that no one ever mentioned it, an immediate sensual connection to people and events, and to her own needs and desires? All these years she had lived in isolation within herself and, strangely, from herself, never wanting or daring to look back.

  Ian Mcewan

  Taken, Simple, Years

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• When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell.

  Richard Dawkins

  Cells, Brain, Mind

  Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition”, p.213, Oxford University Press

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• So I make no effort to hide my pain. I don’t ever put it all on display like this—but for today and all the rest of the days of the trial, I must. My every flinch, every flicker of pain, will be magnified a hundred times over, then dissected by the pundits and talking heads. But I’m told it’s necessary; the world needs to see me vulnerable and wounded. I cannot appear not to care or to lack remorse, but that removes a crucial component of my self- defense mechanism and leaves me bleeding for all the world to see. I suppose that’s rather the point.

  Ann Aguirre

  Pain, Self, Talking

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• Of all the systems of the body - neurological, cognitive, special, sensory - the cardiological system is the most sensitive and easily disturbed. The role of society must be to shelter these systems from infection and decay, or else the future of the human race is at stake. Like a summer fruit that is protected from insect invasion, bruising, and rot by the whole mechanism of modern farming; so must we protect the heart.

  Lauren Oliver

  Summer, Heart, Race

  Lauren Oliver (2014). “Delirium: The Complete Collection: Delirium, Hana, Pandemonium, Annabel, Raven, Requiem”, p.47, Harper Collins

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• He started to touch the mechanism under the keyboard, then pulled his hand back with a snap. "Ah," he said. "Must deactivate the security....Turn around, please." "What?" "Turn around, Claire. It's a secure password!" "You have GOT to be kidding." "Why ever would I joke about that? Please turn.

  Rachel Caine

  Hands, Keyboards, Said

  Rachel Caine (2010). “Ghost Town”, p.117, Allison & Busby

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• I am living in the Google years, no question of that. And there are advantages to it. When you forget something, you can whip out your iPhone and go to Google. The Senior Moment has become the Google moment, and it has a much nicer, hipper, younger, more contemporary sound, doesn't it? By handling the obligations of the search mechanism, you almost prove you can keep up.... You can't retrieve you life (unless you're on Wikipedia, in which case you can retrieve an inaccurate version of it).

  Nora Ephron

  Senior, Iphone, Years

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• I developed a mechanism so that whatever mistakes I made, I would bounce straight back. Whatever was happening off the pitch, I could put it to one side and maintain my form. Call it mental resilience or a strong mind, but that is what we mean when we talk about experience in a football team.

  Gary Neville

  Football, Strong, Mistake

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• With wives, men hide behind the air of bravado, which is basically a defence mechanism, I think. Clever creatures, women. Very clever.

  Les Dawson

  Clever, Men, Thinking

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Give me rampant intellectualism as a coping mechanism.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Coping Mechanisms, Giving, Literature

  Chuck Palahniuk (2011). “Invisible Monsters: A Novel”, p.13, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Commerce, trade and exchange make other people more valuable alive than dead, and mean that people try to anticipate what the other guy needs and wants. It engages the mechanisms of reciprocal altruism, as the evolutionary biologists call it, as opposed to raw dominance.

  Steven Pinker

  Mean, People, Guy

  "The Importance of Being Businessworthy" by Per L. Saxegaard, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 4, 2015.

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• Sundance was started as a mechanism for the discovery of new voices and new talent.

  Robert Redford

  Discovery, Voice, Talent

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• Faith itself is a horrible mechanism that stunts the growth of ideas. It also stunts the act of questioning, and it does this by pushing the idea that you have to have faith - and that nothing has to be proven.

  Joe Rogan

  Ideas, Growth, Doe

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• Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms.

  Salman Rushdie

  Rocks, Rock And Roll, People

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• I've always had a quirky way of looking at things. It's my coping mechanism.

  Sherri Shepherd

  Coping Mechanisms, Quirky, Way

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• Humour has always been a self-defence mechanism for me.

  Brooke Shields

  Self, Humour, Defence

  "Brooke Shields: My family values" by Elaine Lipworth, www.theguardian.com. September 3, 2010.

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• Narcissism and self-deception are survival mechanisms without which many of us might just jump off a bridge.

  Todd Solondz

  Self, Bridges, Hype

  "Sanity and Solitude: Cogent Ramblings of a Lone Aesthetic". Book by Bob Spencer, p. 81, 2012.

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• It is time for the world, the hemisphere and the region to make sure that relevant institutions of civil society and relevant laws are embedded in the mechanisms of governance.

  Baldwin Spencer

  Law, Hemisphere, World

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• I didn't do drugs. It wasn't my thing. But the drink was terrible. Today when I look back, it's like I was another person. You could call it a coping mechanism, but that would be an excuse. I just drank too much.

  Gary Oldman

  Coping Mechanisms, Drug, Would Be

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I see nothing wrong with the human trait to desire. In fact, I consider it integral to our success mechanism. Becoming attached to what we desire is what causes the trouble. If you must have it in order to be happy, then you are denying the happiness of the here and now.

  Peter McWilliams

  Happiness, Success, Order

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• I've been trying to learn how to not be so conflicted about things like my own anger. I've always had a place in my music for my anger as a way of compensating for not having a mechanism to express it in my everyday life. So I've been trying to be more true to myself, and that helps me to chill out a little bit. But politically, uh-uh. No.

  Ani DiFranco

  Anger, Everyday, Trying

  Interview with Stephen Thompson, www.avclub.com. March 13, 2002.

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• I think there is a good deal of promise in those discussions as well. I think there is a range of matters that might be discussed between NATO and Russia that can provide a mechanism for talking through these issues, a way to give reassurance on these issues.

  Warren Christopher

  Thinking, Russia, Talking

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