Sonja Yoerg

• "But once children develop a theory of mind, once they get that not everybody sees and knows what they do, their horizons explode. Hide-and-seek works because they don’t leave bits of themselves sticking out. Secrets become possible. Telling the truth becomes optional. And emotions get complicated. The moment you see yourself as others see you, you become self-conscious. Welcome to embarrassment and shame. And empathy. There is a bright side."

• "Isn’t that what love is, the belief that you exist in the private world of someone else’s mind as a beautiful, cherished being? Perhaps that’s the problem with love: it’s unverifiable."

• "Blind spots are one example of the guessing and filling in that go on routinely in the brain, all in the name of efficiency. The world is fairly predictable, so it makes sense for the brain to rely on expectations, to see what is usually there, and not bother to build the world from scratch every time you open your eyes. The object on the side of the highway appears to be a truck tire, not a dead body, because that’s more likely. Most of the time, the truth doesn’t matter."

• "Perhaps everyone has stories they keep in a lockbox, stories they are not willing to own much less share. But if you don’t acknowledge your own history—all of it, especially the underside—then aren’t you creating blind spots of your own?"

~ Excerpts from Stories We Never Told, by Sonja Yoerg