Berne Quotes & Sayings

George watched this exchange with disappointment. "Performance parenting" was how Tina used to describe it. Seeking to charm listeners in public with one's patience and good humor, using one's child as a foil. Had George not been there, Emily would have told Nicholas to be quiet or no ice cream and that would have been the end of it. — Suzanne Berne

The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours — Eric Berne

Pastimes and games are substitutes for the real living of real intimacy. — Eric Berne

A winner fulfills his contract with the world and with himself. That is, he sets out to do something, says that he is committed to doing it, and in the long run does it. — Eric Berne

A healthy person goes 'Yes,' 'No,' and 'Whoopee!' An unhealthy person goes 'Yes, but,' 'No, but,' and 'No whoopee. — Eric Berne

Awareness means the capacity to see a coffeepot and hear the birds sing in one's own way and not the way one was taught. — Eric Berne

Awareness requires living in the here and now, and not in the elsewhere, the past or the future. — Eric Berne

Love is nature's psychotherapy. — Eric Berne

Some say that one-sided love is better than none, but like half a loaf of bread, it is likely to grow hard and moldy sooner. — Eric Berne

On occasion a traveler will venture from one city to another. Is he perplexed What took seconds in Berne might take hours in Fribourg or days in Lucerne. In the time for a leaf to fall in one place a flower could bloom in another. In the duration of a thunderclap in one place two people could fall in love in another. In the time that a boy grows into a man a drop of rain might slide down a windowpane yet the traveler is unaware of these discrepancies ... If the pace of human desires stay proportionally the same with the motion of waves on a pond how could the traveler know that something has changed — Alan Lightman

Games are a compromise between intimacy and keeping intimacy away. — Eric Berne

I want to kiss you."
It was rather magical, she thought, how those five simple words, said in his lovely deep voice, could set her aflame, like a lamp tipped over and burning up everything in sight. She said:
"Well, kiss me then."
"How imperious you are." He smiled, came close, and set his hand gently under her chin. He bent and touched his lips to hers, lightly, sweetly, and it was as if her whole being rushed to meet him in his kiss. It was light, sweet, tender, caressing, demanding, and fiery hot all at once. How did he do that? There was absolutely no doubt about it. He was an excellent kisser. She could easily get used to this. — Lisa Berne

Where do you get your ideas?' people are always asking authors they admire, which I've always thought was another way of asking, 'How did you get my ideas, which I didn't know I had until you put words to them?' We are known, appreciated, even cherished by our favorite writers; every word of our favorite books seems to have been written for us. Within their sentences and paragraphs, those writers are forever available, forever patient, including us in their compassionate recognition of the impossible, exhausting complexity of being human (those "many thousand" selves), never ignoring us or abandoning us or finding us dull. It's you, they whisper, as we turn their pages, you are the one I've been waiting to tell everything to. — Suzanne Berne

Human life [is] ... a process of filling in time until the arrival of death, or Santa Claus, with very little choice, if any, of what kind of business one is going to transact during the long wait. — Eric Berne

But still he remembered wondering, at the age of ten, is it better to be safe or to be free? — Lisa Berne

We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs. — Eric Berne

Whatever you do, think of next morning's headlines. — Eric Berne

The destiny of every human being is decided by what goes on inside his skull when confronted by what goes on outside his skull. — Eric Berne

A loser doesn't know what he'll do if he loses but talks about what he'll do if he wins and a winner doesn't talk about what he'll do if he wins but knows what he'll do if he loses. — Eric Berne

Such a woman is called "Mother's FRIEND" always ready to give judicious Parental advice and living vicariously on the experience of others — Eric Berne

From Alan Lightman's intricate 1993 novel Einstein's Dreams; set in Berne in 1905: With infinite life comes an infinite list of relatives. Grandparents never die, nor do great-grandparents, great-aunts ... and so on, back through the generations, all alive and offering advice. Sons never escape from the shadows of their fathers. Nor do daughters of their mothers. No one ever comes into his own ... Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free. — Christopher Hitchens

Losers spend time explaining why they lost. Losers spend their lives thinking about what they're going to do. They rarely enjoy doing what they're doing. — Eric Berne

It was time to take action, to change her own story, to take life into her own hands. — Lisa Berne

But weddings tend to resurrect old issues, old emotions; new ideas, new possibilities. — Lisa Berne

It is better to be a slave to your beloved woman than a free man to the unloved one. — Eric Berne

Every man must, in a measure, be alone in the world. No heart was ever cast in the same mould as that which we bear within us. — Eric Berne

Awkwardness with the boyfriend who tried to drown you because he thought he was his own dead brother who turned out not to be dead. Probably not a lot of advice lying around for this particular relationship problem -Hannah — Emma Carlson Berne

He didn't say anything, which daunted her for a moment, but then she saw that his eyes were warm. So she said, tentatively:
"You came for me."
"Yes."
"And took care of me when I was ill."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
Without moving a muscle, she let his words sink in. Reverberate. Settle in her bones. Was this much happiness even possible? Joy so great one couldn't even smile?
"Say it again."
"I love you."
"Again."
"I love you, Livia. I've loved you for weeks - for months - quite possibly from the moment I met you. But it's taken me far too long to understand that. Understand myself."
"Can you say it one more time?"
"Yes. I'll be saying it every day for the rest of my life, if you'll let me. I love you. — Lisa Berne

Each person designs his own life, freedom gives him the power to carry out his own designs, and power gives the freedom to interfere with the designs of others. — Eric Berne

What else could a person do, she thought, staring hard at the darkness, but try to be happy? However confused and wrong-looking the attempt might be. And then whatever happens afterward all you could do was bear it, because whatever you could not bear you had to carry. — Suzanne Berne

Because the terms "sufferers" and "victims" are objectionable, I have chosen the term "patient" by default. — Katrina Berne

The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing. — Eric Berne

In my experience, people's sorrows are always in danger of bursting out; it's only through careful inattention that they can be contained. — Suzanne Berne

Each person decides in early childhood how he will live and how he will die ... His trivial behavior may be decided by reason, but his important decisions have already been made: what kind of person he will marry, how many children he will have, what kind of bed he will die in ... It is incredible to think, at first, that man's fate, all his nobility and all his degradation, is decided by a child no more than six years old, and usually three ... (but) it is very easy to believe by looking at what is happening in the world today, and what happened yesterday, and seeing what will happen tomorrow. — Eric Berne

No man is a hero to his wife's psychiatrist. — Eric Berne

He found on the spot the image of his recent history; he was like one of the figures of the old clock at Berne. THEY came out, on one side, at their hour, jigged along their little course in the public eye, and went in on the other side. He too had jigged his little course
him too a modest retreat awaited. — Henry James

Millions of microscopic fragments of Julia now lay, invisibly, on the speckled beige linoleum tiles of the classroom floor. What was left in her chair was a phantom of Julia, which she learned to project at these moments, by sheer force of will, until she could resemble herself, a process that would take days, even weeks, and was never entirely successful. — Suzanne Berne

Change was coming.
Change was coming, and it was good. — Lisa Berne