Mind Tricks Quotes & Sayings

It is the importance of this quality of generosity in fiction that requires a measure of childishness in the writer. People who have strong mental focus and a sense of purpose in their lives, people who have respect for all that grownups generally respect (earning a good living, the flag, the school system, those who are richer than oneself, those who are beloved and famous, such as movie stars), are unlikely ever to make it through the many revisions it takes to tell a story beautifully, without visible tricks, nor would they be able to tolerate the fame and fortune of those who tell stories stupidly, with hundreds of tricks, all of them old and boring to the discriminating mind. First, with his stubborn churlishness the good writer scoffs at what the grownups are praising, then, with his childish forgetfulness and indifference to what sensible people think, he goes back to his foolish pastime, the making of real art. — John Gardner

The mind plays tricks on itself in order to stay in one piece. — Meg Wolitzer

Shit. The mind gets up to funny tricks, doesn't it? Shadows grow faces. — Stephen King

Sense memories of you persist and do not seem to abate as the day progresses. It's disconcerting, Camilla. I don't like it when my mind plays tricks on me. I would much rather simply have you here in the flesh, to feel and taste and smell with my actual senses. Instead my mind keeps conjuring this false perception of your presence. I think it means I miss you. — Delphine Dryden

Come on... now and my mind plays tricks with me... — Deyth Banger

It takes more than some mind games, a couple of parlor tricks, to get under my skin. — Triple H

But it is one of the tricks of the successful politician to be able to hold many things in mind at once and to switch between them as the need arises; — Robert Harris

... it must be a complete harmonious whole that is attentive. That is attention. Does the mind attend with such complete attention to the activity of the monkey? - not condemning it, not saying 'This is right or wrong', just watching the tricks of the monkey. In this watching there is no analysis...The moment it analyses one of the fragments, the monkey is in operation. — Krishnamurti

Like many other natural wonders, the human mind is something of a bag of tricks, cobbled together over the eons by the foresightless process of evolution by natural selection. — Daniel C. Dennett

On the ride back south, she tapped all the anger-management tricks they'd given her in job training. They played across her windshield like PowerPoint slides. Number One: It's not about you. Number Two: Your plan is not the world's. Number Three: The mind can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. (24) — Richard Powers

When my mind plays tricks on me I can deal. But when my mind plays tricks on my mind I can not tell what's real — Stanley Victor Paskavich

Also, go inside and listen to your body, because your body will never lie to you. Your mind will play tricks, but the way you feel in your heart, in your guts, is the truth. — Miguel Ruiz

You are a placebo responder. Your body plays tricks on your mind. You cannot be trusted. — Ben Goldacre

I had turned my mind from my survival just as a man suffering from a deadly sickness manages by a thousand tricks never to look at death squarely; or rather, as a woman alone in a large house refrains from looking into mirrors, and instead busies herself with trivial errands, so that she may catch no glimpse of the thing whose feet she hears at times on the stairs. — Gene Wolfe

Move your joints every day. You have to find your own tricks. Bury your mind deep in your heart, and watch the body move by itself. — Dharma Mittra

In and out of love, the mind can play tricks. — Emel Oner

The heart is a muscle. You 'know' in your limbic system. The seat of instinct. The mammalian brain. Deeper, wider, beyond logic. That is where advertising works, not in the upstart cortex. What we think of as 'mind' is only a sort of jumped-up gland, piggybacking on the reptilian brainstem and the older, mammalian mind, but our culture tricks us into recognizing it as all of consciousness. The mammalian spreads continent-wide beneath it, mute and muscular, attending its ancient agenda. And makes it buy things. — William Gibson

I'm so suspicious of our own understanding of the past. I just think that your mind plays absolute tricks on you and fools you every minute of every day. And so when you're talking about the past, you're talking about something that never happened. At least it didn't happen the way you think it happened. — Felix Dennis

The first generation of therapists doing this work were told by their clients that the one massive cult was everywhere, knew everything, had access to state-of-the-art technology, and was willing to kill both clients and therapists to stop the information from getting out." []
"The reality is that even before stories of ritual abuse and mind control began coming out to therapists, the groups had agreed on what kind of disinformation to spread, so that clients would be afraid to tell their therapists what had happened to them, and therapists would be afraid to work with these clients." [ ]
"We know that there is not one massive Satanic cult, but many different interrelated groups, including religious, military/political, and organized crime, using mind control on children and adult survivors. We know that there are effective treatments. We know that many of the paralyzing beliefs our clients lived by are the results of lies and tricks perpetrated by their abusers. — Alison Miller

Don't worry about hurting me, Jordan." She brushed back her hair again as she turned from him and headed for the bedroom. "It was too late for that a long time ago."
...
"I've heard the lecture," she informed him as she glared back at him. "I've heard you tell your men how love is an illusion, and how they need to watch their backs before that illusion bites him on the ass, so many times it sickens me. Unless you have something original to add to it, then I don't want to hear it again, if you don't mind."
...
"You're fooling yourself." He had to force the words past his lips. "You're letting lust and pleasure betray you. Tehya. It tricks you. When it fades, all you have left is either friendship or enmity. It's the enmity that worries me, the knowledge of all the little ways you can destroy one another with the knowledge you've gained. I don't want us to go that route. I don't want you to hate me."
...
"Who ruined you before I ever had a chance at your heart? — Lora Leigh

Many people believe they know true darkness, but until it has been experienced it cannot be imagined. Without even a flicker of light, the mind begins to play tricks. There is a constant feeling that there is a wall before you, that you must stop. The eyes open as wide as they can, hungry for light. The only thing that helps is to shut them tight. — Joseph R. Lallo

There is no limit as to what we can learn. Through study, we can learn from the past. Experience can empower us to handle the present. For those who desire to learn of the future, dreams hold a subtle key.
Not all things we see, as we sleep, should be cast aside as non-consequential rubbish. It is true that the mind can play many tricks ... but it can also send you messages meant to be deciphered at a later date. — Jaime Buckley

Joey glanced at his alarm clock and saw it was just before midnight. His eyes drifted to his bookshelf. Lined up in a row, in the order of their publication, were all of the Spook Boys books, a series of kids' books about two adventurous brothers who were constantly getting into mischief as they explored haunted houses and spooky old castles, or tried to solve mysteries involving missing diamonds or stolen paintings. Joey envied the characters in those books - he wanted his own life to be made up of such exciting, implausible adventures. But maybe his imagination had gotten carried away. Maybe his mind, saturated with such fictional tales, was more than willing to play tricks on him when it came to houses like the one on Creep Street. — The Blood Brothers

No, no, no, Landemere. This time I'm putting my foot down. I mean it. Don't think you're going to smear syrup on my beard, as we say in Ramaldah. You're not making me change my mind by sweet talking me. I know your tricks, and I won't fall for them. — Andrew Ashling

I'm not going to lie: There are times I play mind tricks on myself, like that the French fries are poison. With desserts, I'll let myself have just one bite, but I'll look like a freak when I'm eating it, like when I did Duncan Hines commercials as a kid, just savoring every morsel. — Fergie

Keep in mind the devil will use anything he can to divide, confuse, and stir up trouble. We are to learn to recognize his tricks. — Amanda Penland

All historical writing, even the most honest, is unconsciously subjective, since every age is bound, in spite of itself, to make the dead perform whatever tricks it finds necessary for its own peace of mind. — Carl Lotus Becker

Nisi flashed his charismatic, mysterious smile. "Now, with this in mind, are you ready to take the next step?"

Despite Caleb's attempts at caution - at circumspection and even suspicion - the man's words stirred his blood. They teased the possibilities of the power within his reach, real power extending far beyond parlor tricks and personal protection to a place where the course of life itself could be changed.

"I am. — G.S. Jennsen

It is said that love does not last, that it is just a momentary spell cast upon your soul by some higher power, or a small trick of the mind. If this were all true, there would be no story to tell. — Natalie Valdes

I know I'm good but I'm also a poser. That's artistic balance! In the second half of the century, "authenticity" would be what you made of it, a hall of mirrors. Put on the work shirt, young man. No big deal. As you get older, it won't concern you. It's just the lay of the land. In your youth, however, you are easy prey for the many tricks of the mind. At this moment, I know my mid is not at its most centered. I can tell because I'm afraid, and that's not my style; I don't need to be, but I am. — Bruce Springsteen

Stay out there! Don't you dare come back in here with those evil mind tricks! (Simone)
Does it buy me any bonus points to note that you have a really nice looking ass? (Xypher) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Discouragement is a negative emotion with more than one trick up its dark sleeve. It tricks you into mentally or emotionally dwelling in the very place you want to leave. Drop all such sorrow permanently by daring to see through this deception of the unconscious mind. You have a destination far beyond where you find yourself standing today — Guy Finley

Maybe he'd never come across anybody as well versed at objectifying body parts as I was. In my defense, this was an occupational hazard; one of the tricks of my trade was the ability to work with whatever was at hand. Over the years I'd learned to pinpoint my focus to the width of a pubic hair if there was nothing else to work with. (...) Before my eyes -or, more precisely, in my mind- Rasher became Lovely Bum Man. — Aiden Shaw

A lot of the audience know that magic tricks are largely sleight of hand stuff, but they're intrigued by the mind stuff. They understand some of the principles behind it ... but they're confused by how it's all mixed together onstage, which is good for me. — Keith Barry

So did he answer you? I finally had to ask her after a considerable pause, accompanied by the tapping of her fingernails. (illustration credit ill.3) Not really, she said. I'm not sure giving answers is in his bag of tricks. He seems to be more about messing with your mind so that you can't stop thinking about his questions. And if he thinks I can afford to keep stepping out of time like this, with my schedule, then, well, he's just way off. Maybe — Rebecca Goldstein

I love you. Yes, you've heard that before, heard it a million times, but I don't know what else to say." He lifted a hand to my face and touched my cheek. "I need you. This last year, when you were gone, it was hell. I made up my mind that when you came back, I'd do whatever it took to get you back. No more tricks. No more tantrums. I know I didn't do a great job. Hell, you probably never noticed the difference. But I was trying. I'll keep trying. Come back home with me. Please. — Kelley Armstrong

... I was soon wondering if I would ever again be able to attend a mass assemblage without my mind starting to play tricks on me. It wasn't like the last occasion, when I became gradually immersed in the logistical challenge of gassing the audience. No. — Martin Amis

During weight cutting your mind plays tricks on you. — Dorian Yates

The nature of mind: much of its power seems to stem from just the messy ways its agents cross-connect ... it's only what we must expect from evolution's countless tricks. — Marvin Minsky

What tricks the mind is what the mind is glad to be tricked by. — John Christopher

The mind tricks the body,
Body thinks the mind is crazy ... — Buckshot

I kept going deeper and deeper into this world of repetition ... The sad thing is, people don't want to believe that the person they're in love with is out of his mind, drinking and using, so if you give them even half an excuse, they're going to want to believe it. A girl with no prior exposure to the disease had to be blissfully unaware of the nefarious tricks of the dope fiend. That's how I was able to get high all summer and autumn and pretend like it wasn't happening. I was saying, 'I'm sick.' I was deteriorating physically and emotionally. Jaime was tolerant, and it did speak well of her character, because she was not the type to abandon ship during a crisis. She didn't consider backing off or bowing out, she was just there, which I can't say about everybody. I don't know if I could say it even about myself. — Anthony Kiedis

For me, the hardest part is taking lessons, and it's hard teaching an old dog new tricks, so part of my re-teaching myself is opening my mind too. I just want to get better and I think there's nothing wrong with wanting to get better. — Eric Hernandez

Then the Announcer would transform: into a screen through which to glimpse the past-or into a portal through which to step.
This Announcer was sticky,but she soon pulled it apart,guided it into shape. She reached inside and opened the portal.
She couldn't stay here any longer. She had a mission now: to find herself alive in another time and learn what price the Outcasts had referred to, and eventually,to trace the origin of the curse between Daniel and her.
Then to break it.
The others gasped as she manipulated the Announcer.
"When did you learn how to do that?" Daniil whispered.
Luce shook her head. Her explanation would only baffle Daniil.
"Lucinda!" The last thing she heard was his voice calling out her true name.
Strange,she'd been looking right at his stricken face but hadn't seen her lips move. Her mind was playing tricks.
"Lucinda!" he shouted once more, his voice rising in panic,just before Luce dove headfirst into the beckoning darkness. — Lauren Kate

It's perfectly legal in this country to change your mind, but when you're a governor you have to admit it. You can't hide behind parliamentary tricks. That's the difference and that's the kind of leader we need in the White House. Stop the Washington bull and let's get things done! — Chris Christie

Thirdly-but not lastly-there was the bias toward what people saw with their own eyes, or thought they had seen. The human mind played tricks on itself when it relied exclusively on what it saw. There was a lot you couldn't see when you watched a game — Michael Lewis

Until then I had always thought of loneliness as something negative - an absence of company, and, of course, something temporary ... That day I had learned that it was much more. It was something which could press and oppress, could distort the ordinary and play tricks with the mind. Something which lurked inimically all around, stretching the nerves and twanging them with alarms, never letting one forget that there was no one to help, no one to care. It showed one as an atom adrift in vastness, and it waited all the time its chance to frighten and frighten horribly - that was what loneliness was really trying to do; and that was what one must never let it do ... — John Wyndham

But it was just her mind playing cruel tricks, and she tried to push away the irrational thought that Richard was still in there, waiting for someone to save his life. — Paul Pilkington

I found solitary confinement the most forbidding aspect of prison life. There is no end and no beginning; there is only one's mind, which can begin to play tricks. Was that a dream or did it really happen? One begins to question everything. — Nelson Mandela

You've got to understand one of the tricks of the modern mind, a tendency that most people obey without noticing it. In the village or suburb outside there's an inn with the sign of St. George and the Dragon. Now suppose I went about telling everybody that this was only a corruption of King George and the Dragoon. Scores of people would believe it, without any inquiry, from a vague feeling that it's probable because it's prosaic. It turns something romantic and legendary into something recent and ordinary. And that somehow makes it sound rational, though it is unsupported by reason. Of course some people would have the sense to remember having seen St. George in old Italian pictures and French romances, but a good many wouldn't think about it at all. They would just swallow the skepticism because it was skepticism. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority. That's exactly what has happened here. — G.K. Chesterton

Hey, Vader, keep your Jedi mind tricks to yourself. That hurt! (Jesse) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I think that's the job of each of us - to show our best toys and our best tricks that lift us and our friends to higher and higher levels. There is no end to this bootstrapping process. The future of the human mind and body and the future of humans together is endlessly bright. — Terence McKenna

Did you Voice her?" asked Reen. " 'Voice' her?" replied Mander, looking perplexed. "You know. Voice her. Jedi Hoodoo. Mind tricks." She made a theatrical wave of her hand. "Tell her You want to let us land on the planet or something like that. And then she agrees and we go off." "Did Toro tell you we can do that?" asked Mander. "I saw it in the holofilms," said Reen. — Jeff Grubb

Like casinos, large corporate entities have studied the numbers and the ways in which people respond to them. These are not con tricks - they're not even necessarily against our direct interests, although sometimes they can be - but they are hacks for the human mind, ways of manipulating us into particular decisions we otherwise might not make. They are also, in a way, deliberate underminings of the core principle of the free market, which derives its legitimacy from the idea that informed self-interest on aggregate sets appropriate prices for items. The key word is 'informed'; the point of behavioural economics - or rather, of its somewhat buccaneering corporate applications - is to skew our perception of the purchase to the advantage of the company. The overall consequence of that is to tilt the construction of our society away from what it should be if we were making the rational decisions classical economics imagines we would, and towards something else. — Nick Harkaway

The thing about fires most people don't realise is the noise. It's deafening so even if you shout, you can't be heard three feet away. You can never quite get used to the fury of it, it's like a mighty roar of anger that just keeps going. I suppose flame is beautiful, the way it leaps into the air like it's free to do what it wants. Other elements are also free and I guess the sea can be pretty awesome, wind too, and lightning, but fire has a mind and a determination. You don't see it as a blind raging thing, which I suppose it is, but something that attacks and thinks and changes tactics. It has a malevolence that uses surprise, dirty tricks, cunning. You get to think of it as someone, not something, and it's someone you have to beat, but right from the start you don't like your chances because it's so big and unpredictable and can do so much harm. — Bryce Courtenay

I stop stretching and face him, unwilling to back down from this visual standoff. I'm not going to let him perform his little Jedi mind tricks on me, no matter how much I wish I could perform them on him. He's completely unreadable and even more unpredictable. It pisses me off. — Colleen Hoover

That wall is your mind playing tricks on you. You just need to say, 'One more step, I can do this. I have more in me.' You'll be so proud of yourself once you push yourself past your threshold. — Kerri Walsh

The idea of safety had shrunk into particles - one snug moment, then the next. Meanwhile, the brain piped fugues of worry and staged mind-theaters full of tragedies and triumphs, because unfortunately, the fear of death does wonders to focus the mind, inspire creativity, and heightens the senses. Trusting one's hunches only seems gamble if one has time for seem; otherwise the brain goes on autopilot and trades the elite craft of analysis for the best rapid insights that float up from its danger files and ancient bag of tricks. — Diane Ackerman

If we open our eyes, if we open our minds, if we open our hearts, we will find that this world is a magical place. It is magical not because it tricks us or changes unexpectedly into something else, but because it can be so vividly and brilliantly. — Chogyam Trungpa

Hindsight plays tricks on our minds. — Jeremy Siegel

Sholem [a painter] was saying that freedom, for him, is having the technical facility to be able to execute whatever he wants, just whatever image he has in his mind. But that's not freedom! That's control, or power. Whereas I think Margaux understands freedom to be the freedom to take risks, the freedom to do something bad or appear foolish. To not recognize that difference is a pretty big thing. [ ... ]
"It's like with improv," Misha said. "True improv is about surprising yourself
but most people won't improvise truthfully. They're afraid. What they do is pull from their bag of tricks. They take what they already know how to do and apply it to the present situation. But that's cheating! And cheating's bad for an artist. It's bad in life
but it's really bad in art." -p.20-1, How Should A Person Be — Sheila Heti

But he had expressed to Mme. du Chatelet the hope that a way out might lie in applying philosophy to history, and endeavoring to trace, beneath the flux of political events, the history of the human mind. 'Only philosophers should write history,' he said. 'In all nations, history is disfigured by fable, till at last philosophy comes to enlighten man; and when it does finally arrive in the midst of darkness, it finds the human mind so blinded centuries of error, that it can hardly undeceive it; it finds ceremonies, facts and monuments, heaped up to prove lies.' 'History,' he concludes, 'is after all nothing but a pack of tricks which we play upon the dead;' we transform the past to suit our wishes for the future, and in the upshot 'history proves that anything can be proved by history. — Will Durant

I was in a kind of no-man's-land, a place between places. The mind plays all sorts of tricks, gets up to all kinds of things while we ourselves are slumbering in a white zone that looks for all the world like inattention to the onlooker. — Diane Setterfield

The way I look at tricks is if I really have my mind set on one, I'm going to learn it until I can do it 10 or 20 times in a row. I want to perfect it. — Ryan Sheckler