Shneidman Quotes & Sayings

Hindsight is not only clearer than perception-in-the-moment but also unfair to those who actually lived through the moment. — Edwin S. Shneidman

I come from the theater, and I've done a lot of character work in the theater, but Hollywood stuff in film and TV, they've been more leading lady/ingenue type roles. — Sanaa Lathan

Mourning is one of the most profound human experiences that it is possible to have ... The deep capacity to weep for the loss of a loved one and to continue to treasure the memory of that loss is one of our noblest human traits. — Edwin S. Shneidman

There is a phrase for this that has become quite common: "I'm spiritual but not religious." Polls show that some 20 percent of Americans identify overall with that phrase. And some polls have shown that, in the younger generation - those between eighteen and twenty-nine - this percentage explodes to an astonishing 75 percent!2 In other words, three out of four young individuals have a deep spiritual yearning that no existing religion is addressing. — Ken Wilber

To will the obligatory in relation to death is to fall in line with the major immutable cycles of Nature, especially human nature, and to understand that (whether or not there is a purpose or meaning to life or a life of the spirit beyond the life of the body) no one, absolutely no one, escapes being finite and mortal. And knowing this, and then to accept it, to will it, and not to be in an unnecessary state of angst or rebellion or terror over it. — Edwin S. Shneidman

I am a person. I am Raven Stirling. They are monsters. — Amy Ewing

But if we are talking in terms of making progress in life, we must understand that "good enough" is very different from "best. — Paulo Coelho

Each suicidal drama occurs in the mind of a unique individual. — Edwin S. Shneidman

At certain times each year, we journalists do almost nothing except apply for the Pulitzers and several dozen other major prizes. During these times you could walk right into most newsrooms and commit a multiple axe murder naked, and it wouldn't get reported in the paper because the reporters and editors would all be too busy filling out prize applications. — Dave Barry

Death
some form of termination
is the universal ending of all living things; but only man, by virtue of his verbally reportable introspective life, can conceptualize his own cessation. — Edwin S. Shneidman

There is no single best kind of death. A good death is one that is "appropriate" for that person. It is a death in which the hand of the way of dying slips easily into the glove of the act itself. It is in character, ego-syntonic. It, the death, fits the person. It is a death that one might choose if it were realistically possible for one to choose one's own death. — Edwin S. Shneidman

There's no spirit or soul. I will be dead. Get that through your thick head. I'll be dead. And I live, in quotation marks, in my children, in my DNA, in my books, in my reputation. It's as simple as that. — Edwin S. Shneidman

Remember that failure is an event, not a person. — Zig Ziglar