Quotes by Christopher Berry

“We can start work we won’t see the end of. “Plant sequoias,” urges Wendell Berry:      Put your faith in the two inches of humus      that will build under the trees      every thousand years.””

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.’ Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)””

“In one of Wendell Berry’s short stories, the character Burley Coulter says: “The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain’t in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don’t.”16””

“As for the mother’s role as primary caretaker? It is known that boys who share a healthy relationship with their mothers from their early childhood are emotionally strong and are believed to have less behavioural problems in their lives.””

“father figure is one of the major factors determining the character of the child during infancy, particularly when it comes to boys.””

“nightmares – a nocturnal, flesh-eating beast? Was Jeffrey””

“When an airplane navigates through the sky it works its way along a route composed of beacons and waypoints – invisible signposts in the sky – which are defined by geographic coordinates. They constitute the pilot’s map of the world. Flight computers are programmed into these waypoints which are put into the systems before take-off. Assuming these coordinates have been programmed correctly, the plane will go from point A, passing through the designated waypoints, before arriving at point B without a hitch. However, if any of these waypoints are wrong, the aircraft will deviate from its flight programme and its destination which can prove fatal. Life for each of us contains thousands of waypoints; signposts that hopefully provide us with directions as to what to do, how to go about things and where to go next – our decision-making processes. But what happens when our own onboard computer, our brain, has initially been programmed with data that is corrupt and socially unacceptable. How are we able to make life decisions – correct decisions that is?””

“Glibness/superficial charm. Grandiose sense of self-worth. Pathological lying. Cunning/manipulative. Lack of remorse or guilt. Callous/lack of empathy. Failure to accept responsibility for his own actions. Psychopaths and narcissists never admit they are in the wrong, even when faced with contradictory, completely overwhelming evidence against them – unless it suits a purpose in their manipulative scheme of things. Indeed, in all of my years of working with psychopaths, never once have I heard a word of contrition from any of them, and I have got right inside their heads in doing so. Consciously or subconsciously, none of these deviants wanted to get arrested””

“Narcissistic parents – which Frederick Sr and Vera most certainly were – often demand certain behaviours from their children because they see their offspring as extensions of themselves. This is called ‘mirroring’ for parents need to represent their children in a world in ways that meet the parents’ emotional needs. In many of the cases I have been involved with, these ‘expectations’ have gone to the extreme of psychological child abuse. In a nutshell, the parents need their child to be more than they, themselves, could ever be – the mirror itself being flawed.””

“I found myself constantly drawn to the subject of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), which I have concluded is inextricably linked to psychopathy, although this link is rarely mentioned in medical papers or among the psychiatric profession generally. As with psychopathy, people with NPD make up approximately 1 per cent of the population with rates greater in men. Another direct comparison between those suffering with NPD and psychopathy/sociopathy is that both types are characterised by exaggerated feelings of self-importance. In its moderate to extreme forms these people are excessively preoccupied with personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity; mentally unable to see the destructive damage they are causing themselves and others. Symptoms of the NPD disorder include seeking constant approval from others who are successful in positions of power in whatever form it may be. Many are selfish, grandiose pathological liars; their egos and sense of self-esteem over-inflated, while at once they are torn between exaggerated self-appraisal and the reality that they might never amount to much.””

“The grandiose person is never really free. First, because he is so excessively dependent on admiration from others; and second, because his self-respect is dependent on qualities, functions and achievements that can suddenly fail with far-reaching consequences.””

“They are narcissists, pumped full of self-esteem, but that self-esteem is always hanging by a thread and once pricked, their egos burst like a balloon.””

“During my many years of interviewing murderous psychopaths, I have noted all of them have over-inflated egos.””