Phobias Quotes

The boring people are the worst. I think it's obvious, I think people have always had phobias about flying for years even before 9/11 and everything like that. It just taps into that and it taps into who you are going to sit next to on the plane. ~ Cillian Murphy

Lucy: Do you think you have Pantophobia, Charlie Brown?
Charlie: I don't know, what is pantophobia?
Lucy: The fear of Everything.
Charlie: THAT'S IT!!! ~ Charles M. Schulz

I was afraid of small spaces and I was afraid of the tree outside my window, and I had all these phobias. I think many kids have those phobias, but I probably had more than most. ~ Steven Spielberg

New research suggests that we may hold an unconscious bias against creative ideas much like we do in cases of racism or phobias. ~ Anonymous

His unconscious was rapidly becoming a well-stocked pantheon of tutelary phobias and obsessions, homing onto his already over-burdened psyche like lost telepaths. ~ J.G. Ballard

Fear can make a moth seem the size of a bull elephant. ~ Stephen Richards

Mind control is the process by which individual or collective freedom of choice and action is compromised by agents or agencies that modify or distort perception, motivation, affect, cognition and/or behavioral outcomes. It is neither magical nor mystical, but a process that involves a set of basic social psychological principles. Conformity, compliance, persuasion, dissonance, reactance, guilt and fear arousal, modeling and identification are some of the staple social influence ingredients well studied in psychological experiments and field studies. In some combinations, they create a powerful crucible of extreme mental and behavioral manipulation when synthesized with several other real-world factors, such as charismatic, authoritarian leaders, dominant ideologies, social isolation, physical debilitation, induced phobias, and extreme threats or promised rewards that are typically deceptively orchestrated, over an extended time period in settings where they are applied intensively. ~ Steven Hassan

Wealth, the war [WW1], and the phobias, manias, dementias, prejudices and terrors that come from both, were the dominant factors. ~ Robert McAlmon

There's a vast encyclopedia of fears and phobias, and pretty much any object, experience, situation you can think of, there is someone who has a phobia of it. ~ Scott Stossel

Ty frowned. "I don't hate all other animals." "Horses. Dogs. Chipmunks." "They're twitchy, Zane. And chipmunks have shifty eyes." "Moths?" "They have erratic flight patterns!" Zane doubled over, laughing so hard he couldn't catch his breath. Ty glared at him. "I'm glad my phobias amuse you. ~ Abigail Roux

Puppets and paintbrushes...
Mario was well on his thousandth decapitation when it occurred to him these simple objects were mere symbolic manifestations of his deep-seated phobias: fear of failure and fear of success. The first one had stopped him from following his dream; the second had stopped the dream from following him.
"To be simultaneously afraid of success and of failure is like going to bed scared and waking up terrified," he reflected. "Your mind's all wooden, your head's screwed on backwards and before you know it, you're a vermillion blotch on someone else's canvas and the entire world is pulling your strings. ~ Louise Blackwick

I have three phobias ... : I hate going to bed, get up and hate hate being alone. ~ Tallulah Bankhead

A phobia is an excessive or unreasonable fear of an object, situation or place. Phobias are quite common and often take root in childhood for no apparent reason. Other times they spring from traumatic events or develop from an attempt to make sense of unexpected and intense feelings of anxiety or panic.

Simple phobias are fears of specific things such as insects, infections, or even flying. Agoraphobia is a fear of being in places where one feels trapped or unable to get help, such as in crowds, on a bus or in a car, or standing in a line. It is basically an anxiety that ignites from being in places or situations from which escape might be difficult (or embarrassing). A social phobia is a marked fear of social or performance situations.

When the phobic person actually encounters, or even anticipates, being in the presence of the feared object or situation, immediate anxiety can be triggered. The physical symptoms of anxiety may include shortness of breath, sweating, a racing heart, chest or abdominal discomfort, trembling, and similar reactions. The emotional component involves an intense fear and may include feelings of losing control, embarrassing oneself, or passing out.

Most people who experience phobias try to escape or avoid the feared situation wherever possible. This may be fairly easy if the feared object is rarely encountered (such as snakes) and avoidance will not greatly restrict the person's life. At other times, avoiding the fear ~ Sahar Abdulaziz

Sometimes just a little bit of light is enough to turn phobias into fluttering butterflies. ~ Marina Matiss

When phobia starts to build up in the psyche of thinking humanity against a part of its own kind, there is nothing more primordial and gruesome than that, especially when we are talking about a species that is supposedly the most intelligent one on Earth. Phobias recorded in DSM do not make a person lesser human, but Islamophobia does indeed define whether a person is really a thinking and sentient sapiens or an ignorant caveman. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Maybe before you can be fearless, you must be humble. Maybe before you can be courageous, you must surrender. Maybe before you can have pride, you must swallow it. The ego obscures reality just as t6he clouds do the sun. Maybe that's why intelligent people seem more prone to phobias. It's not because they're smarter, it's because they feel more self-important. Conceit is what worry and fear feed on. ~ Joe Kita

Let me tell you what I want,' he said fiercely. 'For a start, I want you. I told you that, but perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I want the whole package, hang-ups, fears and phobias, as well as the good parts. ~ Joanna Mansell

A lot of pieces I have written have to do with courage. As a result, people think that I am naturally brave. But what people don't know, is that I grew up with phobias and many fears. I was scared of everything. So, I write of courage not because I have not known fear, but I write of courage because I have walked with fear but I have made the choice not to fear it. ~ C. JoyBell C.

My father had a lifelong terror, phobia whatever, about hospitals. Makes a lot of sense in hindsight. He was so scared of doctors, he passed that on to me. That's what parents exist for: to pass their phobias on generation to generation. ~ Jackie Kay

I don't have phobias. I'm pretty laid back. Nothing really bothers me. I can handle things pretty well. ~ Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Well, first of all, let me say that I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years. It was one of those phobias that really didn't pay off. ~ Warren Zevon

Gay activists claim that because I don't subscribe to their political agenda, I am a homophobe, meaning I have a mental disorder - because that is what phobias are. ~ Laura Schlessinger

I think we tend to write out our phobias. ~ Stephen King

Why is it that our many mental institutions are overcrowded? People will not take their time. They do not live in the present! For are not all fears, phobias, crippling anxieties tied in with the future - a time that has not yet come - and may not? And are not deep depressions, melancholias, and foolish guilt complexes connected with the past - a time that is gone, and is gone forever - a time that cannot be changed even by God Almighty? These dementias most certainly bespeak some relation to the fact that those plagued with them have not been objective enough to stay in contact with the one great gratuitous reality called now. ~ M. Raymond

After all the shit that went down with Calease, I hate sleeping the way some people hate airplanes. Or small, dark spaces. Or spiders. Or being on an airplane in a small, dark space filled with spiders. ~ Erica Cameron

I strip myself emotionally when I confess need – that I would be lost without you, that I am not necessarily the independent person I have tried to appear, but am a far less admirable weakling with little clue of life's course or meaning. When I cry and tell you things I trust you will keep for yourself, that would destroy me if others were to learn of them, when I give up the game of gazing seductively at parties and admit it's you I care about, I am stripping myself of a carefully sculpted illusion of invulnerability. I become as defenseless and trusting as the person in the circus trick, strapped to a board into which another is throwing knives to within inches of my skin, knives I have myself freely given. I allow you to see me humiliated, unsure of myself, vacillating, drained of self-confidence, hating myself and hence unable to convince you [should I need to] to do otherwise. I am weak when I have shown you my panicked face at three in the morning, anxious before existence, free of the blustering, optimistic philosophies I had proclaimed over dinner. I learn to accept the enormous risk that though I am not the confident pin-up of everyday life, though you have at hand an exhaustive catalogue of my fears and phobias, you may nevertheless love me. ~ Alain De Botton

I described the pyramid we'd found and waited for him to jump on the bandwagon. Unfortunately he's afraid of wagons. And bands. ~ Jennifer Rardin

In actual fact it would seem that during the Cold War, if not during World War II, this country has become frankly a warfare state built on affluence, a power structure in which the interests of big business, the obsessions of the military, and the phobias of political extremists both dominate and dictate our national policy. It also seems that the people of the country are by and large reduced to passivity, confusion, resentment, frustration, thoughtlessness and ignorance, so that they blindly follow any line that is unraveled for them by the mass media. ~ Thomas Merton

It was a salad bar of phobias ~ Augusten Burroughs

While learning about phobias in my college psychology course, I came across the fear of long words- or, as referred to in the medical community: hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. ~ John Goldner

I have, since the age of about 2, been a twitchy bundle of phobias, fears, and neuroses. And I have, since the age of 10, when I was first taken to a mental hospital for evaluation and then referred to a psychiatrist for treatment, tried in various ways to overcome my anxiety. ~ Scott Stossel

Tell us your phobias and we will tell you what you are afraid of. ~ Robert Benchley

You love fear. The ending of fear is death, and you don't want that to happen. I am not talking of wiping out the phobias of the body. They are necessary for survival. The death of fear is the only death. ~ U.G. Krishnamurti

I get the willies when I see closed doors. ~ Joseph Heller

I might have made a tactical error not going to a physician for 20 years. It was one of those phobias that didn't pay off. ~ Warren Zevon

This book is also not intended to be a substitute or replacement for competent medical or psychological treatment when these may be needed. If you suffer from very severe anxiety, severe phobias, severe depression or any other serious mental health condition, the advice in this book may not be appropriate or sufficient for you. You are advised to consult and work with an experienced mental health professional, if you are not already doing so. Also, if you believe that your symptoms or your problems are beginning to get worse as you read this book, you should stop reading it immediately and consult a trained health professional. ~ Doc Orman

Esther changed into a costume of Wednesday Addams, and then they went, the three strangest teenagers in town: a ghost who couldn't speak, a boy who hated the dark, and a girl who dressed as someone else everywhere she went. ~ Krystal Sutherland

When you have fear then the world is a big place. When you have courage then the world shrinks. ~ Stephen Richards

I've fallen prey to my fair share of moments of the phobias of others and the way that that can become an attack. ~ Ezra Miller

You'll find that people often use the excuse "it was the norm" when discussing racism, homophobia, and anything else in our history they are trying to absolve themselves of. Saying that something was "a norm" of the past is a way not to have to deal with its ripple effects in the present. It removes the fact that hate doesn't just stop because a law or the time changed. Folks use this excuse because they are often unwilling to accept how full of phobias and -isms they are themselves - or at least how they benefit from social structures that privilege them. ~ George M. Johnson

Dimanchophobia:
Fear of Sundays, not in a religious sense but rather, a condition that reflects fear of unstructured time. Also known as acalendrical anxiety. Not to be confused with didominicaphobia, or kyriakephobia, fear of the Lord's Day.
Dimanchophobia is a mental condition created by modernism and industrialism. Dimanchophobes particularly dislike the period between Christmas and New Year's, when days of the week lose their significance and time blurs into a perpetual Sunday. Another way of expressing dimanchophobia might be "life in a world without calendars." A popular expression of this condition can be found in the pop song "Every Day is Like Sunday," by Morrissey, in which he describes walking on a beach after a nuclear way, when every day of the week now feels like Sunday. ~ Douglas Coupland

The day I became a writer
it wasn't the day a whore paid me in sex
in exchange for one of my books
which happened often and more and more
as time went on
it wasn't the first time someone
actually paid for one of my books
which happens less and less
as time goes on
It was the day I realized
that everything is created by man
God, Satan, Judas, phobias, excrement, even death
even women
everything is created by man
So I said to myself
shit, let me make something
let me tape together some words
and sentences
and prose
and predicates
and the residual shit that sticks to my ass after I wipe
and compose a new kind of thing
But then I realized that others had discovered this
for themselves as well
And suddenly the world became a jungle
Where everyone eats each other alive
And shits out the same shit ~ Dave Matthes

There's something about most phobias where there's a tiny, tiny corner where you think this really actually could happen. ~ Roz Chast

If a child stays quiet in the context of extroverted friends, or even prefers time alone, a parent may worry and even send her to therapy. She might be thrilled - she'll finally get to talk about the stuff she cares about, and without interruption! But if the therapist concludes that the child has a social phobia, the treatment of choice is to increasingly expose her to the situations she fears. This behavioral treatment is effective for treating phobias - if that is truly the problem. If it's not the problem, and the child just likes hanging out inside better than chatting, she'll have a problem soon. Her "illness" now will be an internalized self-reproach: "Why don't I enjoy this like everyone else?" The otherwise carefree child learns that something is wrong with her. She not only is pulled away from her home, she is supposed to like it. Now she is anxious and unhappy, confirming the suspicion that she has a problem. ~ Laurie A. Helgoe

The discovery of phobias by psychiatrists has done much to clear the atmosphere. Whereas in the old days a person would say: 'Let's get the heck out of here!' today she says: 'Let's get the heck out of here! I've got claustrophobia. ~ Robert Benchley

With endless pharmacological supplies at our fingertips, we do not need to penetrate the motives behind our actions, feelings, transgressions, dreams, and phobias. High on chemical substances we can remain stagnated in an infantile mental state. Without introspection, we foreclose ourselves from gaining the insight that allows us to navigate adulthood's ceaseless demands. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Phobias result from past life experiences.
Many people have phobias about snakes, about heights or enclosed spaces and all of these absolutely come from past-life experiences which are not necessarily bad experiences. ~ Anthea Wynn

I was not a silly kid or outgoing. In fact, I suffered from quite a bit of anxiety. I used to have panic attacks when I was a teenager, really incapacitating moments, because I had some phobias. ~ Dane Cook

I suffer from CLAUSTROPHOBIA, a fear of closed spaces.For example, I'm petrified that the WINE store will be closed before I have time to get there!!! ~ Tanya Masse

All fear has ever done is hold me back. I have so many things I want to accomplish in my life. For myself and for the world. Fear is useless; it just gets in the way of accomplishing everything Overcome fear today and and confront one of your phobias. ~ Demi Lovato

In neurotics, worm phobias are usually found as well as snake phobias. ~ Karl Abraham

When you explore your fears then you set yourself free. ~ Stephen Richards

Hypnosis helps you to increase relaxation and recreate the positive energy in you. Masha's transforming strategy in Los Angeles converts the negative thoughts of the victim with positive. Hypnosis is a trans-personal form that eliminates your fears and phobias from your life. ~ Masha

There was no way I would pair up with this guy - the epitome of a privileged and entitled beefcake. He was everything I loathed rolled up into a tight, luscious, muscular, heady, and quixotically alluring package. My social phobias aside, I needed alone time with Ronan like a car needed a swim in the ocean. ~ L. H. Cosway

I am whelmed, and not overly whelmed, just whelmed about a lot of facets in life - just how fragile life is and the different challenges you have in life, phobias about things. ~ Kevin Nealon

The wrists, the Achilles' tendons, and the neck are some of the weakest points of the human body, so a lot of people have phobias about those things. I can't deal with the undersides of wrists. ~ Kristin Gore

I don't share lots of the phobias that horror movies tap into. I don't mind spiders or snakes or darkness. ~ Helen Mirren

Powerful new drug-free treatments have been developed for depression and for every conceivable type of anxiety, such as chronic worrying, shyness, public speaking anxiety, test anxiety, phobias, and panic attacks. The goal of the treatment is not just partial improvement but full recovery. ~ David D. Burns

My phobias worsen as I get older. I'm scared of flying, driving. I'm terrified of sharks. I'm a germaphobe. But I try to face my fears; I do. Well, most of them. ~ Eli Roth

You aren't afraid of needles. I see one, and I start crying like a baby."
"I've never seen you cry."
"It's on the inside. ~ Gena Showalter

In the last twenty-five years, the borderline patient, who confronts the psychiatrist not with well-defined symptoms but with diffuse dissatisfactions, has become increasingly common. He does not suffer from debilitating fixations or phobias or from the conversion of repressed sexual energy into nervous ailments; instead he complains "of vague, diffuse dissatisfactions with life" and feels his "amorphous existence to be futile and purposeless." He describes "subtly experienced yet pervasive feelings of emptiness and depression," "violent oscillations of self-esteem," and "a general inability to get along." He gains "a sense of heightened self-esteem only by attaching himself to strong, admired figures whose acceptance he craves and by whom he needs to feel supported." Although he carries out his daily responsibilities and even achieves distinction, happiness eludes him, and life frequently strikes him as not worth living. ~ Christopher Lasch

Postpartum depression makes you suddenly feel like a stranger to yourself, but knowing the clinical facts are the first step toward wellness. ~ Judy Dippel

In a way, I had a very good and normal childhood. I had loving and caring parents. But I had a lot of quirks or problems when I was growing up. I had phobias and obsessions. ~ Elyn Saks

It's a universal truth that no parent wishes to acknowledge that the fear and phobias we are in thrall to in adulthood almost invariably connect back to childhood experiences. ~ Mariella Frostrup