Home / Authors / Adam Phillips

Adam Phillips Quotes

Writer

Adam Phillips is a British writer born in September 1954. His works cover a range of fields including psychology, philosophy, and literature, known for his unique perspective and profound insights.

Filter quotes by topic

All Frustration Children Desire Want Freud Love Needs Art Being True Believe Fantasy Feelings Form Idealism Limits May Nostalgia People Psychology Sanity

Famous Adam Phillips Quotes

“In Freud’s story our possibilities for satisfaction depend upon our capacity for frustration; if we can’t let ourselves feel our frustration – and, surprisingly, this is a surprisingly difficult thing to do – we can’t get a sense of what it is we might be wanting, and missing, of what might really give us pleasure.”

Want Desire Pleasure Frustration

Book:Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

Source: Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

“All love stories are frustration stories… To fall in love is to be reminded of a frustration that you didn’t know you had (of one’s formative frustrations, and of one’s attempted self-cures for them); you wanted someone, you felt deprived of something, and then it seems to be there. And what is renewed in that experience is an intensity of frustration, and an intensity of satisfaction.”

Love Desire Satisfaction Frustration Wanting

Author:Adam Phillips

“However much you have been wanting and hoping and dreaming of meeting the person of your dreams, it is only when you meet them that you will start missing them. It seems that the presence of an object is required to make its absence felt (or to make the absence of something felt). A kind of longing may have preceded their arrival, but you have to meet in order to feel the full force of your frustration in their absence.”

Want Love Psychology Longing Absence Frustration Missing Someone

Book:Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

Source: Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

“We never... recover from our first false solution to feeling frustrated – the inventing of an ideal object of desire with whom we will never feel the frustration we fear. The ideal person in our minds becomes a refuge from realer exchanges with realer people.”

Frustration Idealism Freud Object Of Desire

Book:Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

Source: Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

“We are tempted, initially, to be self-satisfying creatures, to live in a fantasy world, to live in our minds, but the only satisfactions available are the satisfactions of reality, which are themselves frustrating; but only in the sense that they are disparate from, not in accord with our wished-for satisfactions”

Reality Fantasy Satisfaction Frustration

Book:Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

Source: Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life

About the Author

Born: September 19, 1954
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 39

Books & Sources

Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived LifeRelated source material

Darwin's Worms: On Life Stories and Death StoriesRelated source material

In WritingRelated source material

MonogamyRelated source material

Going saneRelated source material

Darwin's WormsRelated source material

On BalanceRelated source material

On FlirtationRelated source material

The Beast in the Nursery: On Curiosity and Other AppetitesRelated source material

Similar Authors

David BainBrowse related quotes
Juan Ruiz de AlarconBrowse related quotes
Alice MillerBrowse related quotes
Bruno BettelheimBrowse related quotes
Fred RogersBrowse related quotes
Maria MontessoriBrowse related quotes
Charlotte MasonBrowse related quotes
Jean PiagetBrowse related quotes
Alison GopnikBrowse related quotes
Selma FraibergBrowse related quotes