139 Quotes by Derren Brown

Many atheists might proudly proclaim that our lives have no ultimate meaning, yet the business of finding significance in one's life is perhaps the most important part of being human. When we drift into a life without meaning, we soon become a pack of symptoms and pathologies; and without any feeling of significance, many choose to end their lives altogether.

We might never rid ourselves of a lingering anxiety regarding our death; this is a kind of tax we pay in return for self-awareness.

Everything worthwhile in your life draws its meaning from the fact you will die.

When others inspire us, they tend to do so through the clear expression of these sketchy, adumbrated thoughts we ourselves have known but never had the perspicacity for formulate with certainty.

I'd rather cut off my own balls with blunt bacon scissors than host a dinner party.

Each of us is leading a difficult life, and when we meet people we are seeing only a tiny part of the thinnest veneer of their complex, troubled existences. To practise anything other than kindness towards them, to treat them in any way save generously, is to quietly deny their humanity.

We’re terrible at realising what goes on in other people’s heads because we are trapped inside our own.

We forget our health and comfort and notice a pinching shoe. Much of living well is detaching from our boring stories of pain and shifting focus.

What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgements about these things.