A man may not always be what he appears to be, but what he appears to be is always a significant part of what he is.
– Willard Gaylin
A street thug and a paid killer are professionals-beasts of prey, if you will, who have dissociated themselves from the rest of humanity and can now see human beings in the same way that trout fishermen see trout.
– Willard Gaylin
English is such a deliciously complex and undisciplined language, we can bend, fuse, distort words to all our purposes. We give old words new meanings, and we borrow new words from any language that intrudes into our intellectual environment.
– Willard Gaylin
Expressing anger is a form of public littering.
– Willard Gaylin
Many of the quests for status symbols-the hot automobile, the best table in a restaurant or a private chat with the boss-are shadowy reprises of infant anxieties. The larger office, the corner space, the extra window are the teddy bears and tricycles of adult office life.
– Willard Gaylin
To probe for unconscious determinants of behavior and then define a man in their terms exclusively, ignoring his overt behavior altogether, is a greater distortion than ignoring the unconscious completely.