Quotes from Games People Play

“Awareness requires living in the here and now, and not in the elsewhere, the past or the future.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“Beautiful friendships” are often based on the fact that the players complement each other with great economy and satisfaction, so that there is a maximum yield with a minimum effort from the games they play with each other.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“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, quote from Games People Play

“Pastimes and games are substitutes for the real living of real intimacy.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“Society frowns upon candidness, except in privacy; good sense knows that it can always be abused; and the Child fears it because of the unmasking which it involves. Hence in order to get away from the ennui of pastimes without exposing themselves to the dangers of intimacy, most people compromise for games when they are available, and these fill the major part of the more interesting hours of social intercourse. That is the social significance of games.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“Salesman: ‘This one is better, but you can’t afford it.’ Housewife: ‘That’s the one I’ll take.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“The solitary individual can structure time in two ways: activity and fantasy.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“In short, a diamond bracelet is a much more honest instrument of courtship than a perforated stomach. She has the option of throwing the jewelry back at him, but she cannot decently walk out on the ulcer. ("Look How Hard I've Been Trying")”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“The position is, then, that at any given moment each individual in a social aggregation will exhibit a Parental, Adult or Child ego state, and that individuals can shift with varying degrees of readiness from one ego state to another.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“we shared a common interest in how the past effects people—some let it decide who they are, while others make it part of what they will do.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“As this is written, a sow bug crawls across a desk. If he is turned over on his back, one can observe the tremendous struggle he goes through to get on his feet again. During this interval he has a ‘purpose’ in his life. When he succeeds, one can almost see the look of victory on his face. Off he goes, and one can imagine him telling his tale at the next meeting of sow bugs, looked up to by the younger generation as an insect who has made it. And”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“The essential and similar feature of both procedures and rituals is that they are stereotyped. Once the first transaction has been initiated, the whole series is predictable and follows a predetermined course to a foreordained conclusion unless special conditions arise.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“Cowboy: ‘Come and see the barn.’ Visitor: ‘I’ve loved barns ever since I was a little girl.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“В большинстве случаев человек проводит всю жизнь, обманывая мир, а обычно и себя самого.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“Настоящий человек может быть определен следующим образом: это тот, кто действует спонтанно, но рационально и достойно и учитывает при этом интересы других людей.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“Раны причиняют боль, но как приятно, когда раны залечиваются”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“ощущение независимости достигается, как мы считаем, высвобождением или пробуждением трех способностей: включённости в настоящее, спонтанности и близости”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“Как утверждают многие клиницисты, невротики обращаются к врачу не для того, чтобы
вылечиться, а чтобы понять, как стать еще лучшим невротиком. Сценарные аналитики
утверждают нечто похожее: пациент приходит не для того, чтобы вылечиться, а чтобы научиться лучше играть в свои игры.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“компания женщин, каждое утро собирающаяся по очереди в чьем-нибудь доме, чтобы выпить кофе и поиграть в "Непутевого мужа", скорее всего окажет весьма прохладный прием новой соседке, которая хочет играть во "Все замечательно".”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“На основе жизненной позиции, занимаемой человеком, нетрудно сделать вывод о том, какое у него было детство.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

“очень многие охотнее тратят деньги на выпивку, наркотики и азартные игры, чем на психиатрическую помощь, которая могла бы их спасти.”
― Eric Berne, quote from Games People Play

About the author

Popular quotes

“People, he had said, were always being looked at as points, and they ought to be looked at as lines. There weren't any points, it was false to assume that a person ever was anything. He was always becoming something, always changing, always continuous and moving, like the wiggly line on a machine used to measure earthquake shocks. He was always what he was in the beginning, but never quite exactly what he was; he moved along a line dictated by his heritage and his environment, but he was subject to every sort of variation within the narrow limits of his capabilities.
...
She shut her mind on that too. There was danger in looking at people as lines. The past spread backward and you saw things in perspective that you hadn't seen then, and that made the future ominous, more ominous than if you just looked at the point, at the moment. There might be truth in what Bruce said, but there was not much comfort.”
― Wallace Stegner, quote from The Big Rock Candy Mountain

“I might have taken a little more time, I might have allowed myself a longer goodbye.. soaking up every little detail until the memory was firmly lodged in my mind forever. But that's not how it works is it? And maybe it's better that way. Because some things are never meant to be anything more than a moment. And that was one of them." -Cait”
― Kevin Brooks, quote from Lucas

“Wainwright was telling some story, his face alight, and even across the room, Grey felt the warmth of his presence. As though he sensed their scrutiny, Percy glanced suddenly in their direction, and shot Grey a smile of such delight in his surroundings that Grey smiled back, delighted in turn to see him manage so well.
Lucinda Joffrey emitted a hum of approval.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “And quite good style, too. Did you dress him?” she inquired.
No, but I should like very much to undress him.”
― Diana Gabaldon, quote from Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade

“আমার উপরে সত্য নির্ভর করছে , সত্যের উপরে আমি নির্ভর করছি নে' এরকম যাদের ধারণা তাদেরই বলে গোঁড়া ।”
― Rabindranath Tagore, quote from Gora

“And maybe a hundred billion cephalopod minds, out in the Trojans, just light-minutes apart, have become something—”
“Transcendent.”
― Stephen Baxter, quote from Manifold: Time

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.