Addictive Quotes & Sayings

Work is like a drug. I'm jonesing for more. It's gotten more addictive than I had realized. I get anxious when I have nothing to do now. — John Benjamin Hickey

Part of the success of the tobacco industry in purveying this brew of addictive poisons can be attributed to widespread unfamiliarity with baloney detection, critical thinking, and the scientific method. Gullibility kills. — Carl Sagan

I got addicted. News, particularly daily news, is more addictive than crack cocaine, more addictive than heroin, more addictive than cigarettes. — Dan Rather

Critics have found in the narrative a veneer of erudition that cloaks nothing more than a James Bond-style romp, albeit a highly addictive one. His publisher has described it as 'a thriller for people who don't like thrillers'. One newspaper put it thus: 'It is terribly written, its characters are cardboard cutouts, the dialogue is excruciating in places and, a bit like a computer manual, everything is overstated and repeated - but it is impossible to put the bloody thing down. — Dan Brown

It's funny, because I don't have a very addictive personality in any way except for things like stories or books or movies or TV. I just get, like, completely enamored and lost in that world, especially when one really hits the right way. Like, I just can't do anything else. — Mae Whitman

a cocktail of characteristics that I found addictive, — Gilly Macmillan

All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation. — W. H. Auden

People like her got addictive personalities. You don't want to be catching that. — Junot Diaz

Love sorrows are addictive as other sorrows are not. — Mason Cooley

Scientists who study human motivation have lately learned that after basic survival needs have been met, the combination of autonomy (the desire to direct your own life), mastery (the desire to learn, explore, and be creative), and purpose (the desire to matter, to contribute to the world) are our most powerful intrinsic drivers - the three things that motivate us most. All three are deeply woven through the fabric of flow. Thus toying with flow involves tinkering with primal biology: addictive neurochemistry, potent psychology, and hardwired evolutionary behaviors. — Steven Kotler

Once you explore life outside of work, it becomes addictive. The less you work, the less you want to work. At first, the odd afternoon off seems like a fantastic luxury. Before long, you are opting for a four-day week. Then a four-day week becomes an intolerable demand on your time, so you find a way of moving to a three-day week. — Tom Hodgkinson

For years I was so busy building walls I did not see I was imprisoning myself behind them, and did not recognize this pattern as being addiction. My addictive thinking and behavior became the bars of my cell. Denying feeling empty inside, I constantly looked for new things to acquire, people to be around, substances to take, and new goals to achieve in order to feel better about myself. Over the last four decades I have focused on healing my addictive mind and helping others do the same. — Lee L Jampolsky

We must move in our recovery from one addiction to another for two major reasons: first, we have not recognized and treated the underlying addictive process, and second, we have not accurately isolated and focused upon the specific addictions. — Anne Wilson Schaef

Daniel Nahmod's music is addictive and contagious ... and is equally comfortable addressing your spirituality, your co-dependence and anger, your hungry stomach or your loving heart. His songs run the gamut from meditative to wise-ass to joyful to everything in between, and he is particularly wonderful working with children (and the young-at-heart). When CDs 4 and 5 come out, you can feel totally comfortable buying them unheard and unseen
all of Daniel's music is amazing. — Mel White

Self pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality. — John Gardner

Last night, Bree had been taken. Thoroughly, utterly taken. Gently or roughly, it didn't matter. This man had reached into the darkest part of her mind, had brought out and laid bare the desires she admitted to no one but herself in her most secret, quiet moments. Her hunger had been allowed to run free. There'd been no guilt, no remorse. Nothing was 'wrong'. And God, the feeling of freedom was damned addictive. What did that say about her? How could she love Michael, yet give a part of her she'd never felt comfortable sharing with Michael to this stranger. — E. Jamie

Breaking the rules is addictive, too. — Abigail Roux

He's the epitome of bad boy, if slightly older. He's hazardous, enigmatic and completely addictive. — Jodi Ellen Malpas

Under the Sun of the night. The Sun in winter is addictive. And at night like it is. To be in the forest and wait for a rain of sighs. — Gwen Calvo

One day, you muster the courage and let go of the fear. In a brief moment of insanity, you give wings to the stories you had wanted to tell; some you didn't even know were in you. In that instant, something about you changes. You are born again.

That is not to say the fear and worry and second-guessing go away. They are there. But you learn to cope with them. You learn that they don't control you at all times. In those fleeting moments of freedom, you have the power. You know you are not perfect. You realize no one was born perfect. No one. Rome wasn't built in a day either.
A weird thing happens when you get a glimpse of that side of you. A child-like zeal possesses you. It is addictive. You discover your voice. You matter. Maybe not to the world, yet. You matter to yourself. You are worthy. You are alive. You can be. — K.J. Kilton

Collections collect collectors. It doesn't work the other way around. A certain object misses its own kind and communicates that to some person who surrounds it with rhyming items; these become at first a quorum, then a selective, addictive madness. — Allan Gurganus

It's not that I'm not social. I'm social enough. But the tools you guys create actually manufacture unnaturally extreme social needs. No one needs the level of contact you're purveying. It improves nothing. It's not nourishing. It's like snack food. You know how they engineer this food? They scientifically determine precisely how much salt and fat they need to include to keep you eating. You're not hungry, you don't need the food, it does nothing for you, but you keep eating these empty calories. This is what you're pushing. Same thing. Endless empty calories, but the digital-social equivalent. And you calibrate it so it's equally addictive. — Dave Eggers

I quite like the transitions of being an actor, because you get to explore these little pockets of life. So if you're playing a builder you get to know about building, if you're playing a scientist or a physician or something you get to know about physics. And similarly with this world I like exploring their culture, that very sort of upper middle class, addictive ... that's part of the reason I love it. — Matt Smith

For me writing is a long, hard, painful process, but it is addictive, a pleasure that I seek out actively. My advice to young writers is this: Read a lot. Read to find out what past writers have done. Then write about what you know. Write about your school, your class, about your teachers, your family. That's what I did. Each writer must find his or her own kind of voice. Finally, you have to keep on writing. — Laurence Yep

Much like addictive drugs, power uses ready-made reward circuitries in the brain, producing extreme pleasure. — Nayef Al-Rodhan

Marijuana is not addictive. People are the addicts and they will find a substance or a belief that will feed the addiction they need to make their day go away. Meaning one looks for a substance that allows them not to live with who and what they really are. To stop addiction we must treat the patient and stop blaming everyone and everything else but the abuser. — Steven Machat

Religious faith has something of the same character as falling in love (and both have many of the attributes of being high on an addictive drug* — Richard Dawkins

This could be addictive. — Kevin Pietersen

The loss of connection between churches and neighborhoods creates a corresponding loss of localized imagination and creates an addictive-like dependence on acontextual experts who scan the physical and spiritual horizon for 'success. — Tim Keel

If we are continuing to attract partners that are emotionally unavailable, then it's essential that we observe our own addictive patterns rather than focusing on theirs. — Christopher Dines

The American craving for illegal, mind-altering, addictive chemicals provides a steady flow of American capital through the Texas border into Mexico and South America. Basically, the drug traffic is uncontainable as long as its U.S. market exists, but newspapers and other media virtuously trumpet feel-good headlines about "record drug busts" and arrests while the drug trade continues unabated. — William Earl Maxwell

I have an addictive personality. I was addicted to computer games ... and then all that obsessive nature just piled into music. — Chet Faker

She had moved to Los Angeles from the Midwest, lured by a job with a publisher. But the publisher was bought by another soon after, and she was left without a job. Turning to freelance writing, an erratic marketplace, she found herself either swamped with work or unable to pay her rent. She often had to ration phone calls, and for the first time was without health insurance. This lack of coverage was particularly distressing: she found herself catastrophizing about her health, sure every headache signaled a brain tumor, picturing herself in an accident whenever she had to drive somewhere. She often found herself lost in a long reverie of worry, a medley of distress. But, she said, she found her worries almost addictive. Borkovec — Daniel Goleman

Marxism criticizes the world's dominant economic system, which allows people to amass as much wealth as they can and to spend it as they wish. Should we be surprised that this critique generates backlash? To acquire things and to use them selfishly is a big part of human nature. Technological advances - the new smartphone, the new app, the new car - make each new toy more enticing and addictive. Today technology, more than religion, has become the opium of the people. In developed and developing countries alike, people long to acquire more and consume more. — Philip Clayton

SOCIETY AS COMPULSIVE AND ADDICTED Our society is highly addictive. We have sixty million sexual abuse victims. Possibly seventy-five million lives are seriously affected by alcoholism, with no telling how many more through other drugs. We have no idea of the actual impact on our economy of the billions of tax-free dollars that come from the illegal drug trade. Over fifteen million families are violent. Some 60 percent of women and 50 percent of men have eating disorders. We have no actual data on work addiction or sexual addictions. I saw a recent quotation that cited thirteen million gambling addicts. If toxic shame is the fuel of addiction, we have a massive problem of shame in our society. — John Bradshaw

Journalism is less addictive than communism. — Dan Rather

One of the things that makes a social-media cleanse so difficult is that every time we log on, every notification we get is an addictive substance. It's just like any drug. — Kim Stolz

Beware of addictive medicines. Everything in moderation. This applies particularly to the Internet and your sofa. The physical world is ultimately the source of all inspiration. Which is to say, if all else fails: take a bike ride. — Aaron Koblin

Are you ready to step out of the prison of memory and conditioned responses into the experience of freedom? If so, then observe your addictive behaviors without judgment. — Deepak Chopra

But this kiss? This is one I won't forget any time soon. She tastes ... Jesus, I've never done drugs, but I imagine this is what that first snort of cocaine feels like, that first shot of heroine. Goddamn addictive. — Emma Chase

Knowledge is addictive. Keep it up. — Theresa Sjoquist

In a very real way, attention is a drug. Like dope, attention makes people feel good by delivering a 'hit' of certain neurotransmitters (chemicals that transmit, or block the transmission of electrochemical currents) in the brain. Like anything that does this (viz., sex, risk-taking, power), in excessive amounts it's addictive. And, simply because it works, nothing is as addictive as a pain killer. Hence Narcissus is well-named from the Greek word for narcosis.

Attention is his pain killer. — Kathy Krajco

Now that I finally have the time for it, this web surfing stuff turns out to be as interesting and fun and addictive as you've all been telling me. Zipping from link to link, chasing an idea across the noosphere, sucking up information like a killer whale - way cool. — Spider Robinson

The first stanza of Eyes In Moonlight Drown, a poem from DeadVerse.

With your face framed in a halo of stars,
your hair melts into trailing clouds,
and your eyes in moonlight drown.
A man could lose himself
in those freckled irises,
reflecting the galaxies above;
surely he could fall into their promise
of eternity, of Heaven, of love.
Your lips glisten, part, and beckon,
a smile of warm invitation,
a suggestion of sweet intensity,
a loss of self in addictive agony.
For we translate these aesthetics
into something mystical;
ideas of fantasy, of fiction,
obscuring the clinical truth
of chemical reactions,
electric sparks, responses
as sure as gravity,
measurable yet beyond cold,
above philosophy and below truth. — Scott Kaelen

If you can stop using substance or stop your addictive behavior for extended periods of time without craving, you are not dependent. You are dependent only if you can't stop without physical or psychological distress (you have unpleasant physical and/or psychological withdrawal symptoms) or if you stop and then relapse. — Chris Prentiss

The whole fame and fortune thing is addictive. — Jimmy Nail

Scores of high-powered men and women are addicted to substances or destructive addictive patterns of behaviour. As a matter of fact, it is easier to hide one's addiction while maintaining a high-powered position compared to the addicts and alcoholics we see sleeping on street corners. — Christopher Dines

Don't bend, don't bleed, don't beg, don't scream, don't whine, don't fight, don't tell me. Don't tell me, don't tell me. Don't feel, don't tear, don't kiss, don't care, don't touch, don't want me. Don't want me, don't want me. Something's so sick about this, my misery's so addictive. I'm halfway there watching Northshore from the floor singing to you over my shoulder. — Tegan Quin

Mood alteration is an ingredient of compulsive/addictive behavior. Addiction has been described as "a pathological relationship to any mood-altering experience that has life-damaging consequences." Toxic shame has been suggested as the core and fuel of all addiction. Religious addiction is rooted in toxic shame, which can be readily mood-altered through various religious behaviors. One can get feelings of righteousness through any form of worship. One can fast, pray, meditate, serve others, go through sacramental rituals, speak in tongues, be slain by the Holy Spirit, quote the Bible, read Bible passages, or say the name of Yahweh or Jesus. Any of these can be a mood-altering experience. If one is toxically shamed, such an experience can be immensely rewarding. — John Bradshaw

Mental stories can literally spoil a human life. It took me a long time to become aware of my mental commentary, such as: "Everything always goes wrong", "I won't be accepted", "I'm a failure" or "What's the point?" Those fears were deep-rooted and triggered many upsetting addictive patterns of behaviour — Christopher Dines

In 1995, psychiatrist Ivan Goldberg coined the term internet addiction disorder. He wrote a satirical essay about "people abandoning their family obligations to sit gazing into their computer monitor as they surfed the Internet." Intending to parody society's obsession with pathologizing everyday behaviors, he inadvertently advanced the idea. Goldberg responded critically when academics began discussing internet addiction as a legitimate disorder: "I don't think Internet addiction disorder exists any more than tennis addictive disorder, bingo addictive disorder, and TV addictive disorder exist. People can overdo anything. To call it a disorder is an error. — Danah Boyd

In those days the best painkiller was ice; it wasn't addictive and it was particularly effective if you poured some whiskey over it. — George Burns

I sometimes feel martial arts movies are like porn. They're addictive and no one really watches it for the script. — Clarissa Cartharn

You can either be in the Ron Paul tradition and say there's nothing wrong with heroin and cocaine, or you can be in the tradition that says, 'These kind of addictive drugs are terrible; they deprive you of full citizenship, and they lead you to a dependency which is antithetical to being an American.' — Newt Gingrich

I don't see money as evil or good: how can illusion be evil or good? But I don't see heroin or meth as evil or good, either. Which is more addictive & debilitating, money or meth? Attachment to illusion makes you illusion, makes you not real. Attachment to illusion is called idolatry, called addiction. — Daniel Suelo

A smartphone is an addictive device which traps a soul into a lifeless planet full of lives — Munia Khan

Technology isn't simply addictive - it's addictive because it's a servant to business incentives. There are huge departments in these companies that are devoted to this and staffed by incredibly talented people who have skills that could be put to socially beneficial projects but who are now trying to find out how to make you click and how to maximize your time on a certain site, or encourage teenagers to "friend" more products and constantly engage with them. — Astra Taylor

All of us need to leave things behind in order to follow God. For some of us, it is addictive patterns of behavior, for others an overweening emphasis on our own success, for others the adulation of the crowd. It helps sometimes to look not just at what we're leaving behind and what God promises us, but also at what God has shown us already. Just look at all those fish. — James Martin

And just as agriculture has displaced species-dense communities with its monocrops, its diet has displaced the nutrient-dense foods that humans need, replacing them with mononutrients of sugar and starch. This displacement led immediately to a drop in human stature as agriculture spread - the evidence couldn't be clearer. The reasons are just as clear. Meat contains protein, minerals, and fats, fats that we need to metabolize those proteins and minerals. In contrast, grains are basically carbohydrates: what protein they do contain is low quality - lacking essential amino acids - and comes wrapped in indigestible fiber. Grains are essentially sugar with enough opioids to make them addictive. — Lierre Keith

I think all actors have addictive personalities. — Jonathan Rhys Meyers

You start doing the addictive behavior to feel good and then your receptors get overloaded with dopamine, then you stop doing the addictive thing and some of the receptors have shut down and you don't have enough dopamine to feel good. So then you feel bad and go back to the addictive behavior to get more dopamine. The strange thing is that it works with what we think of as uppers and downers and whatever you call gambling - sidewaysers. — Bill Nye

Toxically shamed people tend to become more and more stagnant as life goes on. They live in a guarded, secretive and defensive way. They try to be more than human (perfect and controlling) or less than human (losing interest in life or stagnated in some addictive behavior). — John Bradshaw

Americans are gathering the courage to just say no. We are saying no to addictive consumer lifestyles. We are saying no to wars and corporate takeover and the IMF loans that gobble up people and their resources. — Cynthia McKinney

If second hand smoke is killing that many people and nicotine is so addictive then why is no one addicted to second hand smoke? — Doug Stanhope

I'm an acquired taste, he assured her, displaying one dimple, but addictive. — Stephanie Bond

I'm not sharing. You're mine. No one will touch you but me. I have an addictive personality. I always have. And you just became my number one addiction. I'm gonna want this. A lot. I'm needy and demanding, and now you're the only one who can meet that need. — Abbi Glines

Just think of the opportunities we can unlock by making education as addictive as a video game. This type of experiential, addictive learning improves decision-making skills and increases the processing speed and spatial skills of the brain. When was the last time your child asked for help with a video game? — Naveen Jain

I mean, the sound of an amplified guitar in a room full of people was so hypnotic and addictive to me, that I could cross any kind of border to get on there. — Eric Clapton

It is seldom that domestic violence is an isolated episode; rather it is comprised of a number of episodes over an extended period of time. — Asa Don Brown

Most weight loss diets center around portion control, which is just trying to eat smaller amounts of the same addictive foods. This approach inevitably fails. — Joel Fuhrman

In 2007, researchers at the University of Bordeaux discovered that sugar has a bigger impact than hard drugs in the brain, The Health Science Academy publishes: Their experiments showed that refined sugar is 4 times more addictive than cocaine! — Tony Milton

I have an addictive personality. Boarding school merely sent me more quickly on the downward spiral that dominated my childhood. — Marcus Brigstocke

Usually I avoid sugar, but sugar is like the most deeply satisfying addictive thing ever. — Rachel Zucker

Havin' cash is highly addictive, especially when you're used to havin' money to live with. — Prodigy

something is malignantly addictive if (1) it causes real problems for the addict, and (2) it offers itself as a relief from the very problems it causes. — David Foster Wallace

Every once in a while, I get the urge. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? The urge for destruction. The urge to hurt, maim, kill.
It's quite a thing, to experience that urge, to let it wash over you, to give in to it. It's addictive. It's all-consuming. You lose yourself to it. It's quite, quite wonderful. I can feel it, even as I speak, tapping around the edges of my mind, trying to prise me open, slip its fingers in. And it would be so easy to let it happen.
But we're all like that, aren't we? We're all barbarians at our core. We're all savage, murderous beasts. I know I am. I'm sure you are. The only difference between us, Mr Prave, is how loudly we roar. I know I roar very loudly indeed. How about you? Do you think you can match me? — Derek Landy

I was completely obsessed with her. Addicted wasn't a strong enough word. She had surpassed my addictive tendencies, and I was full-blown obsessed. — Abbi Glines

The flight experience itself is incredible. It's addictive. It's transcendent. It is a view of the grand plan of all things that is simply unforgettable. — Scott Carpenter

People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other. — Wendell Berry

Why are online games so addictive? It's mostly the narcotic appeal of 'leveling.' — Clive Thompson

Haven't already been drawn into her dark and addictive dystopian series, Ann Aguirre is the author of the best-selling Enclave trilogy. Bonus
book three, Horde , came out late last year, so you can read them without the interminable wait in between. In this — Anonymous

I think for Amazon's customers, it offers a kind of addictive service - the ability to shop without leaving your house, the ability to read without going to a bookstore or a library. — Brad Stone

Highlight just hasn't proven to be very addictive to either me or my friends. We talk about it often. I keep running it. — Robert Scoble

Good habits are as addictive as bad habits, and a lot more rewarding. — Harvey MacKay

Please be careful of becoming so immersed and engrossed in pixels, texting, ear buds, Twittering, online social networking, and potentially addictive uses of media and the Internet that you fail to recognize the importance of your physical body and miss the richness of person-to-person communication. Beware of the digital displays and data in many forms of computer-mediated interaction that can displace the full range of physical capacity and experience. — David A. Bednar

Similarly, consider the relationship between how society handles cigarettes and marijuana. Most medical professionals agree that smoking cigarettes is more damaging to one's health overall than smoking marijuana. Despite its intensely addictive qualities, however, the consumption of tobacco has been legalized in this country, while marijuana is considered a "drug" and is banned. — Dave Pounder

For dinner Jade microwaves some Stars-n-Flags. They're addictive. They put sugar in the sauce and sugar in the meat nuggets. I think also caffeine. Someone told me the brown streaks in the Flags are caffeine. We have like five bowls each.
After dinner the babies get fussy and Min puts a mush of ice cream and Hershey's syrup in their bottles and we watch The Worst That Could Happen, a half hour computer simulation of tragedies that have never actually occurred but theoretically could. A kid gets hit by a train and flies into a zoo, where he's eaten by wolves. A man cuts his hand off chopping wood and while he's wandering around screaming for help is picked up by a tornado and dropped on a preschool during recess and lands on a pregnant teacher. — George Saunders

I ordered my favorite drink; vanilla iced blended coffee with whipped cream and caramel sauce on top. The whipped cream and caramel sauce were the best. Usually when no one was watching, I would lick the inside of the lid to get every last drop of the addictive syrup. Once, my dad caught me doing this and started laughing. I'd gotten caramel plastered over my nose. If Colt had ever seen me do this, I would never live it down. Glancing around, I indulged shamelessly and grinned. -Cheyenne — Lisa L. Wiedmeier

You can't really compare hells. But I suppose the hell of being strung out on another person's addictive behavior is its own special thing. — Jerry Stahl

I really do force myself to not be fully engaged with all the technology at once, just because I have an addictive personality and I get too into it. — Douglas Coupland

But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more. — Margaret Atwood

Note: addiction diverts attention — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Anything that lifts responsibility for our actions is addictive, I've found. So really, looking back, I'd have to say that was not the hard moment. The tough bit is always later, when you're held responsible for yourself again, and your life is expected to go on. — Catherine Ryan Hyde

Healthy and non-shaming mirroring is an important part of the process. We can gain this from a highly emotionally intelligent and effective peer group that has our best interests at heart. — Christopher Dines

Think of an untreated sex addict who spends hours every night until the early hours watching pornography on the internet instead of spending that time with their wife or husband, and then becomes so tired due to the late nights that their professional life suffers. The sex addict's behaviour will cause resentment, destroy trust and create economic insecurities in the family and home. — Christopher Dines

Montana should come with a surgeon general warning that it's addictive. The sky is big and blue, and the air is always fresh and crisp and scented with pine. There's a frontier spirit, but also a calmness, beauty in the landscape that slows your pulse. — Robin Bielman

You are not an alcoholic or an addict. You are not incurably diseased. You have merely become dependent on substances or addictive behavior to cope with underlying conditions that you are now going to heal, at which time your dependency will cease completely and forever. — Chris Prentiss

Each increment of knowledge imparted in this way is so satisfying-and one's ignorance at every stage so consequential-that the process of learning BJJ can become remarkably addictive. I have never experienced anything quite like it. — Sam Harris

Witnessing this sort of unbridled sexuality could be addictive. — Kit Rocha

When you share work, and you have the opportunity of seeing people you like doing what they do best, and you also interchange socially with them, it's very addictive. — Jacqueline Bisset