64 Quotes About Hoarding

"Our recent research indicates that an absence of warmth, acceptance, and support characterizes the early family life of many hoarders, perhaps leading them to form strong emotional attachments to possessions."

"Invariably, people who suffer from hoarding problems fail to maintain even the most rudimentary organization of their stuff—but not from lack of effort. Like Irene, most have spent countless hours trying to organize their possessions, with little success. Deficits in executive functions such as planning, categorization, organization, and attention leave them lost amid a sea of things, unable to figure out what to do next."

"I’m beginning to realise that I’m either overly sentimental, or am a hoarder who struggles to part with things. In all honesty, I’m probably both."

"She lived with the doctor on Via Po, in a gloomy, dark apartment, barely warmed in winter by just a small Franklin stove, and she no longer threw out anything, because everything might eventually come in handy: not even the cheese rinds or the foil on chocolates, with which she made silver balls to be sent to missions to “free a little black boy."

"Hoarding isn't about how much stuff someone has, it's about how they process those things."

"Most hoarders are capable of discarding things if they can convince themselves that the object will not be wasted, that it will go to a good home, or, as in this case, that the opportunity it presented is no longer available. But the amount of time and effort involved in attaining this certainty makes it impossible to keep up with the volume of stuff entering the home."

"But there was so much that one had to pretend not to see the incredible clutter that threatened to overtake the entire flat save for those few narrow paths that the old man moved on; the acrid odor of dirt and neglect that pervaded the place and worked its way into your pores so that you carried it with you after you had left; his odd ways,born of living so long in an absence of mirrors."

"In today's environment, hoarding knowledge ultimately erodes your power. If you know something very important, the way to get power is by actually sharing it."

"She felt as if she were brimming, always producing and hoarding more love inside her. But there was no release."