6 Quotes by Irvin Yalom

The flower replied: you fool! Do you imagine I blossom in order to be seen? I blossom for my own sake because it pleases me, not for the sake of others. My joy consists in my being and my blossoming.

Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, which, in one way or another, attempt to temper the anguish of our finitude.

I explain to my patients that abused children often find it hard to disentangle themselves from their dysfunctional families, whereas children grow away from good, loving parents with far less conflict. After all, isn't that the task of a good parent, to enable the child to leave home?

More than death, one fears the utter isolation that accompanies it. We try to go through life two by two, but each one of us must die alone- no one can die our death with us or for us. The shunning of the dying by the living prefigures final absolute abandonment

[T]he act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.

Upon learning that her cancer had spread to her spine, Paula prepared her thirteen year-old son for her death by writing him a letter of farewell that moved me to years. In her final paragraph she reminded him that the lungs in the human fetus do not breathe, nor do it's eyes see. Thus, the embryo is being prepared for an existence it cannot yet imagine