Difficult childhood Quote by Martha Beck

““Cruelty, whether physical or emotional, isn't normal. It may signal what psychologists call the dark triad of psychopathic, narcissistic and Machiavellian personality disorders. One out of about every 25 individuals has an antisocial personality disorder. Their prognosis for recovery is zero, their potential for hurting you about 100 percent. So don't assume that a vicious person just had a difficult childhood or a terrible day; most people with awful childhoods end up being empathetic, and most people, even on their worst days, don't seek satisfaction by inflicting pain. When you witness evil, if only the tawdry evil of a conversational stiletto twist, use your ninjutsu, wait for a distraction, then disappear.””

Martha Beck

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 2.7 out of 5 (5 ratings)

More by Martha Beck

Imagine what you'd do if it absolutely didn't matter what people thought of you. Got it? Good. Never go back.

Martha Beck

Image

In one century, we've added 28 years to our average life span - a change so rapid that our brains couldn't possibly have evolved…

Martha Beck

Image

If I tell a man he needs to quit his soul-sucking job, he has to go home and fight with his wife or fight…

Martha Beck

Image

I was learning to track rhinoceroses in Africa and tracked right up on an animal that really I thought was going to kill me.

Martha Beck

Image

There has never been, and never will be, anyone who sees, thinks, or responds exactly the way you do. Whether you’re revolutionizing physics or…

Martha Beck

Image

Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact.

Martha Beck

Image

Most of my clients don't realize that the way they look and the way they think about their looks are two separate issues.

Martha Beck

Image

The power to bring me out of solitude - or to push me back into it - had never belonged to another person. It…

Martha Beck

Image

Learning to quit while you're not ahead, when the dull ooze of depression tells you things are not going to get any better, is…

Martha Beck

Image

The important thing is to tell yourself a life story in which you, the hero, are primarily a problem solver rather than a helpless…

Martha Beck

Image

A joyful life isn’t about others; it’s about the brightness that is associated with being alive. Your path to it is through anything that…

Martha Beck

Image

Fear is the raw material from which courage is manufactured. Without it, we wouldn't even know what it means to be brave.

Martha Beck

Image

Explore all 318 Martha Beck quotes

More Difficult childhood quotes

I had a pretty difficult childhood.

Wissam Ben Yedder

Image

I had a difficult childhood. I had lots of anxiety and questions. I found the world scary and intimidating.

Mabel

Image

I had difficult mother, difficult childhood like she had. She is Sagittarius like I am. I almost died from broken heart because of love.…

Marina Abramovic

Image

I had been riding horses before my memory kicked in, so my life with horses had no beginning. It simply appeared from the fog…

Monty Roberts

Image

Its claimed Macaulay Culkins health problems are linked to a difficult childhood. No sh1t. His parents forgot to take him on holiday 4 times.

Azgraybebly Joslan

Image

Artemis women often have difficult childhoods. She's the kid who seeks comfort in the woods, or animals, or books. If trapped in an authoritarian…

Justine Musk

Image

My mother had a very difficult childhood, having seen her own mother kill herself. So she didnt always know how to be the nurturing…

Amy Tan

Image

“I could bring the difficult childhood card but that would be a lie because I had the most decent example of a good childhood. I never lacked love, on the contrary, I think I had an excess of it because too much love made me incapable of seeing the evilness of this world. And when I did, it made me…

Lunga Noélia Izata

“Caddy came home on Friday evening. Perfectly Harmless Patrick brought her in his battered old car... "Crikey, Caddy!" said Indigo, and he disappeared upstairs…

Hilary McKay