52 Quotes by Eric Berne

Spontaneity means option, the freedom to choose and express one’s feelings from the assortment available.

A game looks like a set of operations, but after the payoff it becomes apparent that these operations were really maneuvers; not honest requests but moves in the game.

It is not difficult to deduce from an individual’s position the kind of childhood he must have had. Unless something or somebody intervenes, he spends the rest of his life stabilizing his position and dealing with situations that threaten it: by avoiding them, warding off certain elements or manipulating them provocatively so that they are transformed from threats into justifications.

Salesman: ‘This one is better, but you can’t afford it.’ Housewife: ‘That’s the one I’ll take.

Raising” children is primarily a matter of teaching them what games to play. Different cultures and different social classes favor different types of games, and various tribes and families favor different variations of these. That is the cultural significance of games.

There is no hope for the human race, but there is hope for individual members of it.

At the end of the party, each person will have selected certain players he would like to see more of, while others he will discard, regardless of how skillfully or pleasantly they each engaged in the pastime. The ones he selects are those who seem the most likely candidates for more complex relationships – that is, games. This sorting system, however well rationalized, is actually largely unconscious and intuitive.