A child has a mood—he or she wants to play, or stay in the room, or be loony. The grownups have bigger moods. The abusive, or depressed, or alcoholic, or workaholic, or crazy parent has an enormous mood, and it is the only mood that counts. The children and the other parent have to adapt to that big mood, serve it, cater to it, sacrifice their mood

Only when a man’s interior warriors are strong enough can he go into the joy of display.

Shame keeps us from cultivating a garden.

The Destructive Father does not give energy to those in his family but draws it out of them into some black hole he shelters in himself. He draws it out steadily, as the great tyrants we know of draw it from their citizens.

Contemporary business life allows competitive relationships only, in which the major emotions are anxiety, tension, loneliness, rivalry, and fear.

Each father inherits thousands of years of cunning and elaborate fatherhood. An apparently weak father can control the entire family from beneath with his silences.

The Twisted side of the Great Mother doesn’t want the boy to grow up because if he does he will pass out of her realm.

that accepting an initiatory task is more important than succeeding or failing at it.

The burning of the Wild Man preceded the burning of the witches by several centuries, and it proceeded from the same fear and anger.