Mind Block Quotes & Sayings

Unlike the Marxists, I have no mind block against the U.S. — Mamata Banerjee

One must avoid getting stuck in the negative memories because these can block personal growth. — Hina Hashmi

To see the butcher slap the steak before he laid it on the block, and give his knife a sharpening, was to forget breakfast instantly. It was agreeable too - it really was - to see him cut it off so smooth and juicy. There was nothing savage in the act, although the knife was large and keen; it was a piece of art, high art; there was delicacy of touch, clearness of tone, skilful handling of the subject, fine shading. It was the triumph of mind over matter; quite. — Charles Dickens

I lost hope when I saw the horses' teeth.
As I got closer to the fence, I held my shirt over my nose to block the smell. One stallion waded through the muck and whinnied angrily at me. He bared his teeth, which were pointed like a bear's.
I tried to talk to him in my mind. I can do that with most horses.
Hi, I told him. I'm going to clean your stables. Won't that be great?
Yes! The horse said. Come inside! Eat you! Tasty half-blood!
But I'm Poseidon's son, I protested. He created horses.
Usually this gets me VIP treatment in the equestrian world, but not this time.
Yes! The horse agreed enthusiastically. Poseidon can come in, too! We will eat you both! Seafood! — Rick Riordan

Wise Blood was written by an author congenitally innocent of theory, but one with certain preoccupations. That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. For them Hazel Motes' integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid of the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind. For the author Hazel's integrity lies in his not being able to. Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen. — Flannery O'Connor

Writers block: when I get it, it's because my subconscious spotted that I'd make a huge structural mistake in constructing a novel before my conscious mind became aware of it, and threw on the brakes. So I've learned not to sweat it: take two days off, then back up a chapter, read through, and try to work out why I'm suddenly uneasy about continuing. — Charles Stross

Destroy superabundance. Starve the flesh, shave the hair, clarify the mind, define the will, restrain the senses, leave the family, flee the church, kill the vermin,vomit the heart, forget the dead. Limit time, forgo amusement, deny nature, reject acquaintances, discard objects, forget truths, dissect myth, stop motion, block impulse, choke sobs, swallow chatter. Scorn joy, scorn touch, scorn tragedy, scorn liberty, scorn constancy, scorn hope, scorn exaltation, scorn reproduction, scorn variety, scorn embellishment, scorn release, scorn rest, scorn sweetness, scorn light. It's a question of form as much as function. It is a matter of revulsion. — Jenny Holzer

Sometimes ideas flow from my mind in a raging river of stringed sentences; I can scarcely scribble on the page fast enough to keep up with the mental current. Sometimes, however, beavers move in and dam the whole thing up. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Above all, be at ease, be as natural and spacious as possible. Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature. Think of your ordinary emotional, thought-ridden self as a block of ice or a slab of butter left out in the sun. If you are feeling hard and cold, let this aggression melt away in the sunlight of your meditation. Let peace work on you and enable you to gather your scattered mind into the mindfulness of Calm Abiding, and awaken in you the awareness and insight of Clear Seeing. And you will find all your negativity disarmed, your aggression dissolved, and your confusion evaporating slowly like mist into the vast and stainless sky of your absolute nature. — Sogyal Rinpoche

The majority of the ten thousand states of mind cannot be discussed. It is rather a question of teaching a person to step outside the conceptual framework they have and transmitting blocks of awareness to an individual psychically. — Frederick Lenz

The constancies and equivalences adumbrated work havoc with such settled topical blocks as myth and philosophy, natural reason and revelation, philosophy and religion, or the Orient with its cyclical time and Christianity with its linear history. And what is modem about the modem mind, one may ask, if Hegel, Comte, or Marx, in order to create an image of history that will support their ideological imperialism, still use the same techniques for distorting the reality of history as their Sumerian predecessors? — Eric Voegelin

If I behave like a good boy and take my Prozac ... then I won't be able to write anymore.
I'll have Writer's block from not being able to communicate with the characters in my mind. — Timothy Pina

That was one thing you found out when you were stoned, or wasted, or feverish: that the world was always turning and that only a healthy mind could block out the sickening whirl of it. — Joe Hill

Then he went into the dining room, consulting his watch. It was ten thirty already. More than half the morning was gone. More than half the time for sitting and trying to write the prose that would make people sit up and gasp. It happened that way more often now than he would even admit to himself. Sleeping late, making up errands, doing anything to forestall the terrible moment when he must sit down before his typewriter and try to wrench some harvest from the growing desert of his mind. ("Mad House") — Richard Matheson

Bessie was News, Leaders, and Gossip; Enid was Features, Make-up and general Sub. Whenever they were at a loss for copy they would mercilessly pillage ancient copies of Punch or Home Chat. An occasional hole in the copy was filled with a ghoulish smudge - local block-making had clearly indicated that somewhere a poker-work fanatic had gone quietly out of his mind. In this way the Central Balkan Herald was made up every morning and then delivered to the composition room where the chain-gang quickly reduced it to gibberish. MINISTER FINED FOR KISSING IN PUBIC. WEDDING BULLS RING OUT FOR PRINCESS. QUEEN OF HOLLAND GIVES PANTY FOR EX-SERVICE MEN. MORE DOGS HAVE BABIES THIS SUMMER IN BELGRADE. BRITAINS NEW FLYING-GOAT. — Lawrence Durrell

If you meditate, meditation is so beautiful, who bothers about the result? And if you bother about the result, meditation is not possible. This result oriented mind is the only barrier, the only block. There are not many blocks, the only block is that of the result oriented mind: never here-now, always somewhere else thinking of the result; while making love, thinking about the result. — Rajneesh

I have tasted words, I have seen them. Never had her hands reached out in darkness and felt the texture of pure marble, never had her forehead bent forward and, as against a stone altar, felt safety. I am now saved. Her mind could not then so specifically have seen it, could not have said, Now I will reveal myself in words, words may now supercede a scheme of mathematical-biological definition. Words may be my heritage and with words ... A lady will be set back in the sky ... there was hope in a block of unsubstantiated marble, words could carve and set up solid altars ... Thought followed the wing that beat its silver into seven-branched larch boughs. — H.D.

My mind flashed back to the Cultural Revolution, when a group of Red Guards pulled our neighbor, Granny Li, out of the opera company's dormitory block and ordered the rest of us to bring out our thermos flasks. We then had to stand and watch as the Red Guards poured ten flasks of boiling water over Granny Li's head. — Ma Jian

The unusual thing about quiet is that when you seek it, it is almost impossible to achieve. When you strive for quiet, you become impatient, and impatience is itself a noiseless noise. You can block every superficial sound, but, with each new layer extinguished, a next rises up, finer and more entrapping, until you arrive at last in the infinite attitude of your own riotous mind. Inside is where all the memories last like wells, and the unspoken wishes like golden buds, and the pain that you keep, lingering and implicit, staying inside, nesting inside, articulating, articulating, through to the day you die. (p. 240) — Hilary Thayer Hamann

When I have trouble writing, I step outside my studio into the garden and pull weeds until my mind clears
I find weeding to be the best therapy there is for writer's block. — Irving Stone

Old unhealthy thoughts can block off inspiration and motivation. Dropping them releases a strong flow of power through the mind. — Norman Vincent Peale

Unprocessed intense emotion goes underground and creates a subconscious block that can be released as soon as the original event is integrated in the mind, heart, and body. — Deborah Sandella

Thanks to my mother, I was raised to have a morbid imagination. When I was a child, she often talked about death as warning, as an unavoidable matter of fact. Little Debbie's mom down the block might say, 'Honey, look both ways before crossing the street.' My mother's version: 'You don't look, you get smash flat like sand dab.' (Sand dabs were the cheap fish we bought live in the market, distinguished in my mind by their two eyes affixed on one side of their woebegone cartoon faces.)
The warnings grew worse, depending on the danger at hand. Sex education, for example, consisted of the following advice: 'Don't ever let boy kiss you. You do, you can't stop. Then you have baby. You put baby in garbage can. Police find you, put you in jail, then you life over, better just kill youself. — Amy Tan

Why didn't the Democrats accomplish more right after the 2006 elections that gave them control of Congress? It wasn't just that they didn't have votes to override a presidential veto or block a filibuster. They didn't use their mandate to substantially change how the public--and the media-- thought about issues. They just tried to be rational, to devise programs to fit people's interests and the polls. Because there was little understanding of the brain, there was no campaign to change brains. Indeed, the very idea of "changing brains" sounds a little sinister to progressives-- a kind of Frankenstein image comes to mind. It sounds Machiavellian to liberals, like what the Republicans do. But "changing minds" in any deep way always requires changing brains. Once you understand a bit more about how brains work, you will understand that politics is very much about changing brains-- and that it can be highly moral and not the least bit sinister or underhanded. — George Lakoff

Every thought which enters the mind, every word we utter, every deed we perform, makes its impression upon the inmost fiber of our being and the result of these impressions is our character. The study of books, of music, or of the fine arts is not essential to a lofty character. It rests with the worker whether a rude piece of marble shall be squared into a horse-block or carved into an Apollo, a Psyche, or a Venus di Milo. It is yours, if you choose, to develop a spiritual form more beautiful than any of these, instinct with immortal life, refulgent with all the glory of character. — Orison Swett Marden

I like that Pilates compromises the mind and body. It's not just about being able to run around the block a few times. It's about alleviating stress and controlling breathing. It's about being balanced. — Aimee Mullins

I need someone whose mind falls like a chopper on a block; to whom the pitch of absurdity is sublime, and a shoestring adorable. To whom can I expose the urgency of my own passion? — Virginia Woolf

I never thought I'd get to see Rome," Hazel said. "When I was alive, I mean for the first time, Mussolini was in charge. We were at war."
"Mussolini?" Leo frowned. "Wasn't he like BFF's with Hitler?"
Hazel stared at him like he was an alien. "BFF's?"
"Never mind."
"I'd love to see the Trevi Fountain," she said.
"There's a fountain on every block," Leo grumbled.
"Or the Spanish Steps," Hazel said.
"Why would you come to Italy to see Spanosh steps?" Leo asked. "That's like going to China for Mexican food, isn't it?"
"You're hopeless," Hazel complained.
"So I've been told. — Rick Riordan

When I first took this job at the factory it was not my intention to work there very long, for I once possessed higher hopes for my life, although the exact nature of these hopes remained rather vague in my youthful mind. While the work was not arduous, and my fellow workers congenial enough, I did not imagine myself standing forever at my designated assembly block, fitting together pieces of metal into other pieces of metal, with a few interruptions throughout that day for breaks that were supposed to refresh our minds from the tedium of our work or for meal breaks to allow us to nourish our bodies. Somehow it never occurred to me that the nearby town where I and the others at the factory lived, travelling to and from our jobs along the same fog-strewn road, held no higher opportunities for me or anyone else, which no doubt accounts for the vagueness, the wispy insubstantiality, of my youthful hopes. — Thomas Ligotti

Reprogramming the unconscious beliefs that block fuller awareness of creative/intuitive capabilities depends upon a key characteristic of the mind, namely that it responds to what is vividly imagined as though it were real experience. — Willis Harman

I tell him getting stuck is the commonest trouble of all. Usually, I say, your mind gets stuck when you're trying to do too many things at once. What you have to do is try not to force words to com. That just gets you more stuck. What you have to do now is separate out the things and do them one at a time. You're trying to think of what to say and what to say first at the same time and that's too hard. So separate them out. Just make a list of all the things you want to say in any old order. Then later we'll figure out the right order. — Robert M. Pirsig

Every time you try to block a thought out of your mind, you drive it deeper into your memory. By resisting it, you actually reinforce it. — Rick Warren

The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as the sculptor works on his block of stone. — William James

I would have you imagine, then, that there exists in the mind of man a block of wax ... and that we remember and know what is imprinted as long as the image lasts; but when the image is effaced, or cannot be taken, then we forget or do not know. — Plato

There are few experiences as depressing as that anxious barren state known as writer's block, where you sit staring at your blank page like a cadaver, feeling your mind congeal, feeling you talent run down your leg and into your sock. — Anne Lamott

The greatest artist has no conception which a single block of white marble does not potentially contain within its mass, but only a hand obedient to the mind can penetrate to this image. — Michelangelo

Were they laughing at me? I forced myself to block them from my mind, to concentrate on the lake, the water. What were they to me? People I met today, that was all. We shared blood. The One who mattered to me still found me worthy, still loved me, whether I knew when to curtsy properly or not. — Lisa Tawn Bergren

You cannot eliminate a thought by fighting it or trying to block it out. Resisting an unwanted thought only entangles you and drives that thought deeper into your mind, making it even more of a distraction. — Tommy Newberry

Know Brainers Brainpower of none: When you hit a mental wall, quiet your mind to regain brain energy and find fresh solutions. Learn to use silence to solve perplexing problems and think deeply. Brainpower of one: Work on one thing at a time. Sequential-task instead of multitask. Secondly, strategically block a large percentage of incoming information and consciously know what to select. Brainpower of two: Every day identify and dedicate the majority of time to your two most important "elephant" tasks. — Sandra Bond Chapman

SCHEDULING. Now you can look at the week ahead with your goals in mind and schedule time to achieve them. For example, if your goal is to produce the first draft of your personal mission statement, you may want to set aside a two-hour block of time on Sunday to work on it. Sunday (or some other day of the week that is special to you, your faith, or your circumstances) is often the ideal time to plan your more personally uplifting activities, including weekly organizing. It's a good time to draw back, to seek inspiration, to look at your life in the context of principles and values. If you set a goal to become physically fit through exercise, you may want to set aside an hour three or four days during the week, or possibly every day during the week, to accomplish that goal. There are some goals that you may only be able to accomplish — Stephen R. Covey

Researchers are learning that a change in mind-set has the power to alter neurochemistry. Belief and expectation - the key elements of hope - can block pain by releasing the brain's endorphins and enkephalins, mimicking the effects of morphine. — Jerome Groopman

Your unconscious mind takes the things you can't handle and plays with them while you sleep until some of the sharp corners are worn off. — Lawrence Block

I assumed this yoke would encase me as well as any another hobble. Only this one bound the mind. — Jazz Feylynn

Increase Your Productivity We live in a demanding and distracting world. Being productive can sometimes feel like an impossible feat. Here are three ways to get more done without burning out: Keep one to-do list. Include everything you want or need to do in one place. Writing it down helps get it off your mind and leaves you free to focus on the task at hand. Do the most important thing first. Before you leave work in the evening, decide what one thing you need to accomplish the next day. Do it first thing in the morning, when you're likely to have the most energy and fewest distractions. Schedule time for non-urgent things. It's easy to get caught up in the pressing issues of the day. Block off time in your calendar to do things that would otherwise get squeezed out, like writing, thinking creatively, or building relationships. — Anonymous

Sometimes I wonder if there are some memories the mind doesn't want to deal with and that if it really wants to, it can block out the images, shut down, numb the pain connected to what we saw - what we didn't want to see. If we allow it to, the numbness can drown out everything, even the spark of life inside us. And eventually the person we once were is nothing but a vanishing memory. — Jessica Sorensen

Some knitters say that they buy yarn with no project in mind and wait patiently for the yarn to "speak" to them. This reminds me of Michelangelo, who believed that every block of stone he carved had the statue waiting inside and that all he did was reveal it. I think I've had yarn speak to me during the knitting process, and I've definitely spoken to it. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong, or maybe my yarn and I aren't on such good terms, but it really seems to me that all I say is "please" and all it ever says is "no". — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

I hug her one more time and pull her down to the bed. And in my mind, I rise up from the bed and look down on us, and look down at everybody else in this hospital who might have the good fortune of holding a pretty girl right now, and then at the entire Brooklyn block, and then the neighborhood, and then Brooklyn, and then New York City, and then the whole Tri-State Area, and then this little corner of America- with laser eyes I can see into every house- and then the whole country and the hemisphere and now the whole stupid world, everyone in every bed, couch, futon, chair, hammock, love seat, and tent, everyone kissing or touching eachother ... and i know that i'm the happiest of all of them. — Ned Vizzini

Mind is blocking the fountain of intelligence like a rock. — Rajneesh

As I got closer to the fence, I held my shirt over my nose to block the smell. One stallion waded through the muck and whinnied angrily at me. He bared his teeth, which were pointed like a bear's.
I tried to talk to him in my mind. I can do that with most horses.
Hi, I told him. I'm going to clean your stables. Won't that be great?
Yes! The horse said. Come inside! Eat you! Tasty half-blood!
But I'm Poseidon's son, I protested. He created horses.
Usually this gets me VIP treatment in the equestrian world, not this time.
Yes! The horse agreed enthusiastically. Poseidon can come in, too! We will eat you both! Seafood!
Seafood! The other horses chimed in as they waded through the field. — Rick Riordan

Good cheer is a state of mind or mood that promotes happiness or joy ... With God's help, good cheer permits us to rise above the depressing present or difficult circumstances. It is a process of positive reassurance and reinforcement. It is sunshine when clouds block the light. — Marvin J. Ashton

The entire structure of the human mind blocks out most of infinity. To a certain extent it's necessary because otherwise one would be insane, unless you have a very developed mind to deal with the endless permutations of infinity simultaneously. — Frederick Lenz

Don't deny yourself food, but pay attention to what your body needs when your mind craves a block of cheese because you haven't had adult conversation in eight hours. — Kristina Pinto

The bully on the block who beats up somebody doesn't become more powerful. All they do is walk around inside their own mind with an inflated ego. — Frederick Lenz

Liv runs. Every morning, and some evenings too. Running has taken the place of thinking, of eating, sometimes of sleeping. She runs until her shins burn and her lungs feel as if they will explode ... She plugs in her iPod earphones, closes the door of the block, rams her keys into the pocket of her shorts, and sets off at a pace. She lets her mind flood with the deafening thumping beat, dance music so relentless that it leaves no room for thought. — Jojo Moyes

He squinted up at the straining muscular backs of the stone men supporing the dome. "You'll have to take me to some museums," he said. He was being the young man on the road, following the sun because gray weather made him suicidal, writing his poetry in his mind in diners and gas station men's rooms across the country. "But I did see a show of Hopper once. And I like his light. It was kind of lonely or something.
Or, "The world's a mess, it's in my kiss,' like John and Exene say," he mumbled. We were in a leather store on Market Street being punks on acid with skunk-striped hair and steel-toed boots. — Francesca Lia Block

Goodbye Syn.

That man at the end of the bar; that was the kind of man that lured you to his bed at night and fucked you senseless, but then beat the shit out of you the next morning, because in the harsh light of day, he wasn't gay. Furi knew that type of man all too well. As he walked the half-block to the bus stop, his blood cooled at the horrific memories of the last year as he lit a Marlboro and waited for the next bus. He didn't need to dredge up old horror stories, he had to get his mind right ... he had an early shoot in the morning. — A.E. Via

Load up your mind with pictures capturing your preferred tomorrow. Put the remembrances of the past in a place where they won't block your view. — Gary Carter

Remember ...
Keystrokes are hammer taps. Get words on paper. Don't worry about connections, character or plot. Work for an hour. Promise yourself an hour. Do nothing else but move your fingers. Make coarse shapes. Follow any emotion that pops up but never impose emotion, never fake it, and don't make up your mind or your heart ahead of time. Understand you don't know what you're doing. That's why you're here. Rough it out. Anything goes. You can decide later what any piece of text looks like, what it might mean. Don't stop. Don't question. Don't quit. Don't stop to read what you wrote. Move your fingers. You mind will have no other option but to keep up. Remember that writer's block is merely the cold marble waiting for the chisel to heat up. — Bob Thurber

We are to regard the mind, not as a piece of iron to be laid upon the anvil and hammered into any shape, nor as a block of marble in which we are to find the statue by removing the rubbish, nor as a receptacle into which knowledge may be poured; but as a flame that is to be fed, as an active being that must be strengthened to think and to feel
and to dare, to do, and to suffer. — Mark Hopkins

If someone is in the same state of mind and doesn't seek to block your success, you have a friend. Such friends are rare, and if you find such a friend, value them. — Frederick Lenz

When your feeling down, do you know you can change it, like that. Put on a beautiful piece of music, start singing, that will change your emotion - or think of something beautiful, think of a baby, maybe one you love, really keep that thought in your mind, block out everything but that thought. I guarantee you'll start to feel good. — Bob Proctor

The ordinary reality, as I perceive it, is but a huge and intricate virtual screen which operates on multiple levels. Its origins and developments extend far beyond the understanding and scope of the established functioning of the mind. Trapped in the pen of the binary system and the identification with their physical bodies, human beings eat up a fodder made up of sin, guilt and fear, as they watch the soap opera of life being repeated over and over. Yet such a mirage is so insane and unreal that attentive eyes cannot help discovering gaps all over the place. Although the operators at the projector do their best to botch it up, the absurd illusion of this misperception may reveal itself at any moment. It is like a boasting block of ice showing off its solidity as long as the temperature is below zero and yet inevitably starting to thaw and melt away in warmer weather. — Franco Santoro

Fear is an insidious virus. Given a breeding place in our minds ... it will eat away our spirit and block the forward path of our endeavors. — James F. Bell, III

Abby must have been the one who found the safe house, because Townsend didn't like it.
"The building across the street is under construction," he snarled as soon as we'd carried our bags inside.
"The elevator has key card access, and I've hacked into the surveillance cameras from every system on the block," Abby argued. "We have a three-hundred-sixty-degree visual."
"Excellent." Townsend dropped his bag. "Now the circle can see us from every angle."
"Don't mind Agent Townsend, girls," Abby told us. "He's a glass-half-empty kind of spy."
"Also known as the good kind," he countered.
Abby huffed. — Ally Carter

Make up your mind to this. If you are different, you are isolated, not only from people of your own age but from those of your parents' generation and from your children's generation too. They'll never understand you and they'll be shocked no matter what you do. But your grandparents would probably be proud of you and say: 'Theres a chip off the old block,' and your grandchildren will sigh enviously and say: 'What an old rip Grandma must have been!' and they'll try to be like you. — Margaret Mitchell

You ask: What is it that philosophers have called qualitative states? I answer, only half in jest: As Louis Armstrong said when asked what jazz is, 'If you got to ask, you ain't never gonna get to know.' — Ned Block

I have a binging imagination and thus a mental hoarding problem.
What I need to do is host an estate sale in my heavy head
and invite those suffering from creative block in through the porches of my ears to browse through the crowded unorganized trove of
curious coinages, precious epiphanies and junky minutiae and take away inspiration while uncluttering my poor mind. — Stephen Stokes

When we are angry we are blind to reality. Anger may bring us a temporary burst of energy, but that energy is blind and it blocks the part of our brain that distinguishes right from wrong. To deal with our problems, we need to be practical and realistic. If we are to be realistic, we need to use our human intelligence properly, which means we need a calm mind. — Dalai Lama

You could block things from your mind for years at a time. You could make them go away because you know that if you let them in, the pain could nearly kill you. — Diane Chamberlain

Shut your eyes and you can often see more; block your ears and you can often hear more, but close your mind and you may never know more. — Barry Cheskin

I've spent years trying to block out how you look. And sound. And feel. And before this show, I'd gotten pretty good at it. But now, here you are, in front of me every day, and it blows my mind that a single touch from you still has the power to ruin me. And whenever it happens, I forget about the choices I've made, and the circus my life's become, and I want you. Consequences be damned. — Leisa Rayven

You need to see what the actor needs. This one wants to be talked to privately. That one doesn't mind if you block it for them. Just tell me the truth and I'll adapt to it. — Penny Marshall

Fear and fatigue block the mind. Face both, then courage and confidence flows into you. — B.K.S. Iyengar

'm constantly depressed by the Mexican gang members I meet in East L.A. who essentially live their lives inside five or six blocks. They are caught in some tiny ghetto of the mind that limits them to these five blocks because, they say, "I'm Mexican. I live here." And I say, "What do you mean you live here - five blocks? Your granny, your abualita, walked two thousand miles to get here. She violated borders, moved from one language to another, moved from a sixteenth-century village to a twenty-first-century city, and you live within five blocks?" — Richard Rodriguez

By exerting its will, Descartes declared, the immaterial human mind could cause the material human machine to move. This bears repeating, for it is an idea that, more than any other, has thrown a stumbling block across the path of philosophers who have attempted to argue that the mind is immaterial: for how could something immaterial act efficaciously on something as fully tangible as a body? Immaterial mental substance is so ontologically different-that is, such a different sort of thing-from the body it affects that getting the twain to meet has been exceedingly difficult. To be sure, Descartes tried. He argued that the mental substance of the mind interacts with the matter of the brain through the pineal gland, the organ he believed was moved directly by the human soul. The interaction allowed the material brain to be physically directed by the immaterial mind through what Descartes called "animal spirits"-basically a kind of hydraulic fluid. — Jeffrey M. Schwartz

Never mind what you feel. Think. Watch. Think again. And then one step at a time to put things right. As a mason puts one block at a time. To build solid and good. So with thought. Think. Build one thought at a time. Think solid. Then act. Is it? — Richard Llewellyn

You don't want to block your thoughts, emotions, and so on; nor do you want to chase after them. If you chase after them, if you let them lead you, they begin to define you, and you lose your ability to respond openly and spontaneously in the present moment. On the other hand, if you attempt to block your thoughts, your mind can become quite tight and small. — Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

I don't like putting glasses on and watching 3D. I don't mind wearing glasses, but it's the dimness of the light and the fact that you're filtering the light. Whatever 3D process is being used is a filtration of light, which means it's blocking some of the light. — Peter Jackson

You try to become the character that you're working with. So for me, I try to block out the cameras and try to trick my mind that this is actually happening. — Bailee Madison

An effective breakout block is at least three-hours long and spent on things other than work. It is time scheduled away from your business during normal business hours that you will use to refresh and reinvigorate your mind, so that when you return to work, you can engage with more focus and energy. — Brian P. Moran

If you think of memory not just as looking back but as being aware of time and how it passes and what the passage of it feels like, then there is something about being in motion that does cause it. Through some sleight of mind, physical forward motion makes time seem visible. Which causes me to think that maybe the unnatural speed of cars and jets actually creates nostalgia. Because the simplest way to block out the strangeness of time passing before your eyes is to fix it in place, to edit it down to monuments or potted plants. Like, — Adam Haslett

There are many influences in my music, not only blues. R&B, Motown, gospel, old timey, jazz, even classical are all part of what I do. I started with classical, then country, then blues, and after that I started listening heavily to Motown and gospel. My earliest efforts as a songwriter were soul. Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, Wilson Pickett, Gladys Knight, James Brown, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and Fontella Bass are just a few of the names that come to mind as the God's of soul and Motown. — Rory Block

Thinking about the things that happened, I don't know any other ball player would could have done what he (Jackie Robinson) did. To be able to hit with everybody yelling at him. He had to block all that out, block out everything but this ball that is coming in at a hundred miles an hour and he's got a split second to make up his mind if it's in or out or down or coming at his head, a split second to swing. To do what he did has got to be the most tremendous thing I've ever seen in sports. — Pee Wee Reese

One aspect of serendipity to bear in mind is that you have to be looking for something in order to find something else. — Lawrence Block

Not because he was a decent block, mind you. He was an arse. But he was a shirt arse, like meself. (Napoleon) — Stephanie Perkins

I could spend a thousand years trying to block that moment from my memory, and it would still be burned into my mind. — Jamie McGuire

You'll have to take me to some museums, he said. He was being the young man on the road, following the sun because gray weather made him suicidal, writing his poetry in his mind in diners and gas station men's rooms across the country. — Francesca Lia Block

Fiction works because a part of the mind forgets that it's fiction while we're reading it. — Lawrence Block

The virgin birth has never been a major stumbling block in my struggle with Christianity; it's far less mind boggling than the Power of all Creation stooping so low as to become one of us. — Madeleine L'Engle

His idiot face gets redder and his eyes bulge and his ears block. I'd say his mind stops functioning, but I lack the proof of any other state from which it might stop." Bronowski — Isaac Asimov

But most of us are apt to settle within ourselves that the man who blocks our way is odious, and not to mind causing him a little of the disgust which his personality excites in ourselves. — George Eliot

Governments that block the aspirations of their people, that steal or are corrupt, that oppress and torture or that deny freedom of expression and human rights should bear in mind that they will find it increasingly hard to escape the judgement of their own people, or where warranted, the reach of international law. — William Hague

I felt a new wave of irritation, squelched it as I kicked into scientist mode. First rule: block mind-set. Don't suspect, don't fear, don't hope for any outcome. Observe, weigh, measure, and record.
Second rule: block emotion. Leave sorrow, pity, and outrage for later. Anger or grief can lead to error and misjudgment. Mistakes do your victim no good. — Kathy Reichs

Not every affection which seems good is to be immediately followed. Neither is every opposite affection to be immediately avoided. Sometimes it is expedient to use restraint even in good desires and wishes, lest through importunity you fall into distraction of mind, lest through want of discipline you become a stumbling block to others. — Thomas A Kempis

She looked at the empty page, which remained blank, apart from the small wet dots from her tears, for hours. Her mind was a turmoil of sadness, rage, fear and all those emotions that gave her inspiration. However her heart lacked the will as the empty words enclosed her soul pulling it down towards the frenzied ravenous imps that stalked hells pantry.... — Virginia Alison

Ugh, writer's block. The best thing to do is to forget about everything you're trying to do. Get away from your writing station, kick your feet up and relax. Then allow your mind to just wander. Don't stop it. Just let yourself think of anything, no mater how silly the thoughts seem. Remember, not to judge these thoughts. This will open up your creative receptors. You'll begin to think outside the box. Then the good stuff will start racing through you. That's when you start writing! — La Tisha Honor

The Stone of Guilt in the River of the Mind, the block in the flow of intelligence.
~ Paramahamsa Nithyananda — Paramahamsa Nithyananda

I wrote poetry from the time I could write. That was the only way I could begin to express who I was but the poems didn't make sense to my teachers. They didn't rhyme. They were about the wind sounds, the planets' motions, never about who I was or how I felt. I didn't think I felt anything. I was this mind more than a body or a heart. My mind photographing the stars, hearing the wind. — Francesca Lia Block

Sometimes she has imagined what it would be like to fly, to live in the river, to run like a horse. She has dreamed of that freedom, that power, and fears the wildness in herself that wants to live as beasts live, moved purely by need and desire. She has felt torn between the heat of her limbs and the thoughts in her mind telling her to be careful and good and always calm.
Don't scream or cry, don't run to him and throw yourself at his feet, pleading for him to take you in his arms, don't strip off your clothes and run naked to the water, wild with wanting. — Francesca Lia Block

It's an unfortunate word, 'depression', because the illness has nothing to do with feeling sad, sadness is on the human palette. Depression is a whole other beast. It's when your old personality has left town and been replaced by a block of cement with black tar oozing through your veins and mind. This is when you can't decide whether to get a manicure or jump off a cliff. It's all the same. When I was institutionalised I sat on a chair unable to move for three months, frozen in fear. To take a shower was inconceivable. What made it tolerable was while I was inside, I found my tribe - my people. They understood and unlike those who don't suffer, never get bored of you asking if it will ever go away? They can talk medication all hours, day and night; heaven to my ears. — Ruby Wax