"And in the childhood of the murderers who later became dictators, I have always found a nightmarish horror, a record of continual lies and humiliation, which upon the attainment of adulthood, impelled them to acts of merciless revenge on society. These vengeful acts were always garbed in hypocritical ideologies..."
Alice Miller
The Essential Role of an Enlightened Witness in Society

"...we have created a political process in which "consensus" is the last thing the professionals want or need, a process that works precisely by turning the angers and fears and energy of the few—that handful of voters who can be driven by the fixed aspect of their own opinions—against the rest of the country."
Joan Didion
Fixed Opinions, or The Hinge of History

Whenever you find yourself closing in on yourself, lonely, living increasingly in your head, fearfully dropping out of the mainstream of genuine emotional life, find someone who will be strong enough to confront you and bring you back to life, as quickly as possible, and never let go.
Jean Hantman

"Ambivalence (hate you Monday, love you Tuesday) is universal, but the persistent wish to be rescued and placed in wonderful adoptive homes derives not from a universal fantasy but from what's going on in the actual homes many children are in."
Jean Hantman
The Family Romance Revisited 

"In pleading our just cause before the bar of history ...we shall be guided by certain fixed principles.
...Abhorring war as a chosen way to balk the purposes of those who threaten us.
...Honoring the identity and the special heritage of each nation in the world, we shall never use our strength to try to impress upon another people our own cherished political and economic institutions."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
First Inaugural Address