Book Titles

When [anger] burns out, it leaves the ashes of resentment and contempt. And contempt is the handmaiden of hopelessness.

Thanks to the revisionist power of memory to justify our decisions, by the time many couples divorce, they can’t remember why they married.

Self-justification is the route by which ambivalence morphs into certainty, guilt into rage. The love story has become a hate book.

Without self-justification, we might be left standing emotionally naked, unprotected, in a pool of regrets and losses.

In a rift, no one is going to admit that he or she lied or stole or cheated without provocation; only a bad person would do that, just as only a heartless child would abandon a parent in need.

…personality difference have nothing to do with it. Sweet, kind people are as likely as crabby ones to be victims or perpetrators and to justify themselves accordingly.

Many victims are unable to resolve their feelings because they keep picking at the scab on the wound…

…history is written by the victors, but it’s victims who write the memoirs.

Once people commit themselves to an opinion… they become less able to accept information that is dissonant with their positions.

We can all understand why victims would want to retaliate. But retaliation often makes the original perpetrators minimize the severity of harm…