The Hypnotist's Love Story Quotes
"Chances are, you’ve already had the experience of going into a 'trance-like state' in your day-to-day life."
"I didn’t really believe in it, to be honest. My plan was to lie there and pretend it was working, and try not to laugh."
"As I looked around me, I saw that the light reflected off the ocean and onto the walls: prisms of dazzling, dancing light. It was a bit hypnotic actually."
"I could sense her happiness. It radiated off her, sickly, like cheap perfume."
"I tasted sour jealousy in my mouth and helped myself to a chocolate to make it go away."
"For a moment she saw her mother, eyes lifted to heaven. 'Ellen, tell me, my darling, do you truly believe this facile self-help nonsense you spout?'"
"She thought about the hundreds, maybe thousands, of stories of rejection she’d heard from her clients over the years."
"She couldn’t control what was about to happen, only her response to it."
"After breakfast, she’d rugged up warmly to walk along the beach and come back exhilarated and windblown, licking salt from her lips."
"She met Jon on her thirtieth birthday. So OK, she thought, this is the one. The real grown-up relationship."
"That’s why breakups felt like your skin was being torn from your body."
"Every commercial break I dipped my hand into the box and pulled something out at random."
"That’s the most beautiful map I’ve ever seen."
"I’ve got this box. Sometimes I think if I just threw away the box, I might be able to stop."
"I don’t make my clients do anything," she said. "I help them to bypass the critical factor and directly access their unconscious minds. My client had what’s called a mini ‘satori.’ It’s the Zen word for enlightenment."
"He couldn’t really. They were still in control. He just helped them lose their inhibitions," said Ellen.
"I want to be in the driver’s seat all the time, so to speak."
"I’m sorry," she said. "When I was asking all those questions about Saskia I hadn’t thought about how she’s the last person you want to talk about. I mean, the way this must affect you—it must be—well, obviously I’ve got no idea what it must be like."
"It’s always the first thing on their mind," said Ellen’s friend Madeline.
"I’ve been out with men who never think about sex. Anyway, I’d just that moment had this revelation that I needed to stop thinking of him as a man, and think of him as an individual, as just another human being."
"The rejected stalker is often a former intimate partner, with a complex, volatile mix of desire for reconciliation and revenge."
"You are always in control. You can stop at any time."
"We're trying to wake them up." - From an article by Ellen O’Farrell in Hypnotherapy Today.
"It’s strange, because I felt like I was a bit insane then; I think I was still in shock over Colleen’s death, and Saskia seemed so sane." - Patrick reflecting on meeting Saskia.
"Every baby was gorgeous: their big melting eyes seemed to fix on Ellen as if they knew her secret." - Ellen observing babies in Noosa.
"Then Mum died, and then he ‘ended the relationship.’ Perhaps he’d been getting bored and my leg was the final straw." - Saskia reflecting on her past with Patrick.
"It’s like I am smashing my head against an enormous, impassive silent cliff face, over and over, until I’m dripping with blood." - Saskia describing her frustration.
"It’s all very simple," said Anne. "You’re the one talking about terminating the pregnancy, you can hardly get all sensitive about the possibility of a miscarriage."
"Everyone tries to hypnotize their partners," he’d said to her once. "We’re just better at it than the average person." - Danny to Ellen about hypnosis.
"It’s a load of crap, of course. I think." - Saskia doubting Ellen’s hypnotherapy.
"I always thought she was just weirdly selfless, until I started taking care of Jack, and that’s when I began to get an inkling of how your child’s moods dictate yours and how maybe that becomes a habit." - Ellen on understanding parenthood.
"I can still feel the exact shape of my room key in the palm of my hand and taste the exact combination of salt and ice and alcohol in my mouth from the margaritas we drank as we stood together in the hotel lift, both of us knowing that we were going to my room to make love for the first time." - Saskia remembering her time with Patrick.
"Moment after moment slipped by when she could have told him."
"I thought: They’re actually going to live that life."
"But I’ll make sure they always know I’m still there, looking in, peering through the glass, tapping on the window. I will never go away."
"Her eye was caught by something behind him. A slight movement."
"She was still intrigued. Even more so than before. Fascinated."
"Patrick had bought an expensive bottle of champagne and cheese and biscuits and strawberries."
"She pondered this when she woke up first from their afternoon nap, Patrick’s body still curved around hers, their fingers still interlaced from when they’d fallen asleep together."
"Ellen laughed and put down her champagne glass with slightly trembling fingers."
"He didn’t answer. He seemed to be getting back up in an extremely awkward manner, like an old, arthritic man."
""Ellen," said Patrick, and his voice changed, becoming deep and ponderous."
"I don’t know, I’m an accountant, not a historian! Anyway, I don’t believe in past lives."
"The most trivial incident can be traumatic for a child," said Ellen. "And your subconscious retains those memories. That’s what we’re going to do at our next session. We’re going to reprogram your subconscious."
"I’d sort of like to introduce you to her," he said quietly.
"Of course it’s not," she said, while silently shrieking, Of course it’s weird! Are you out of your mind?!
"I try to be invisible when they’re together. It’s my own personal code of stalker ethics."
"You must hate her," said Madeline. "I hate her on your behalf. You can’t even plan your own wedding!"
"I don’t hate her," said Ellen. "Not really. I’d actually quite like to talk to her."
It’s funny that people call hypnotherapy "new age." Hieroglyphics found on tombs indicate that the Egyptians were using hypnosis as early as 3000 BC. —Excerpt from Ellen O’Farrell’s Introduction to Hypnotherapy two-day course.
"I’ve been trying to _un_hypnotize you, Saskia."
"The suffragettes didn’t starve themselves for the vote so that you girls could starve yourselves for a man."
"You frightened me, but at the same time you intrigued me."
"It was like acid, corroding him from the inside."
"Patrick would have been a typical dad, involved with the school, leaving the domestic decisions to his wife—a simpler, sweeter person."
"She wondered what sort of person Patrick would have been if Colleen had lived."
"She would tell Patrick she was too tired to talk, too tired to talk about anything—the past, the future, the present."
"He doesn’t love me as much as he loved Colleen."
"You’ll be surprised at how your friends will step up."
"You think love is black and white. All women think that."
"It was a warm Saturday afternoon, two weeks after the accident, or the event, or whatever you want to call it."
"It was the fresh air and the power of suggestion at work. She was being gently hypnotized."
"The love she felt for Grace seemed to permanently hover on a knife’s edge between joy and terror."
"Every time I check my phone or my e-mail and I don’t see Saskia’s name, it’s like I’ve won a prize."
"Violence isn’t just physical. You took away all his power."
"I’d always thought we could have been friends in a different world."
"These were the muddled, imprecise facts of her conception: not quite a great love story, not quite a seedy indiscretion, not quite a brave feminist act."
"Nothing was permanent: The Buddhists knew what they were talking about."