“People allow themselves to be defeated”

“He laughed, looking down into his empty cup. “Decent people don’t expect that kind of twistedness.” He put the cup down on the floor. “And if they ever did suspect it, they’d just blame themselves for thinking too mean. You should trust your disquiet the next time. That’s what it’s there for. A man like that gets where he is by seeming. And then he makes you feel obligated to him. It’s an old trick.”

“Trust is weird,” my mother said. “People give it too easily, most of the time. Because somebody is attractive, they expect him to be good or honest. Or like pushy salesmen—somebody who carefully makes you feel like you’re emotionally obligated to trust them. Like you’re the rude one if you don’t. Trust is really something that needs to be earned. Hard earned. If somebody every says, ‘Don’t you trust me?’ Just say, “No, as a matter of fact.”

“I'm convinced that each human being more or less builds his own reality. You are what you believe you are. We make images in our minds of what will be---based on what we believe or want, what we're afraid of---”

“Listen very hard and follow your heart. Your heart is good. It's your brain that gets you into trouble.”

“Every person defines reality in his own way. And every person figures that anybody who doesn't agree with him has got to be irrational.”

“...it depends on whose reality you're using for rules. You just have to remember that, and then you can see that nothing should be taken absolutely seriously. Personally, I always like to use my own reality as a standard.”