Carrie Bradshaw Quotes

Maybe some women aren't meant to be tamed. Maybe they just need to run free until they find someone just as wild to run with them. -Carrie Bradshaw

Maybe all men are a drug. Sometimes they bring you down and sometimes, like now, they get you so high.

If you smile, even if you’re feeling bad, the action of the muscles will trick your brain into thinking you’re happy

Guys are like dogs: they never notice if you've changed your hair, but they can sense when there's another guy sniffing around their territory

I'd much rather be someone's shot of whiskey than everyone's cup of tea.

I don't like to think of myself as a 'virgin'. I prefer to think of myself as 'sexually incomplete'. You know. Like I haven't finished the course yet.

I know I have to do the right thing. And the sooner you do the right thing, the better. You get it over with, and you don't have to worry about it anymore. But who does that in real life? Instead, you procrastinate and think about it and put it off and think about it some more until that one little pebble grows into a giant block inside your head.

Seriously, Jack, I think you might be the only guy in this city who hasn’t read his stuff. Collin McCann is like the Carrie Bradshaw of Chicago men.” “You mean Terry Bradshaw,” Jack corrected. “No, Carrie,” Wilkins repeated. “You know, Sarah Jessica Parker. Sex and the City.” A silence fell over the room as Collin and Jack stared at Wilkins, seriously fearing for the fate of men.

Men do suck.

I’ve never understood sexy lingerie. I mean, what’s the point? The guy’s only going to take it off.

Have I become the girl who waits by the phone, hoping it will ring, who asks a friend to dial her number to make sure the phone is working?

I wanted to structure a day where a hypothetical random snapshot of me looked like Carrie Bradshaw in her kimono, totally relaxed, not Brittany Murphy in Girl, Interrupted, diddling an old chicken under her bed. The

Um, Mindy is much less like Elizabeth Bennet than she is a combination of Carrie Bradshaw and Eric Cartman.

Maybe you can’t have it both ways. His life and your life. How do you put two lives together, anyway?

Hello Lover!

I'm missing the bride gene. I should be put in a test tube and studied.

Family secrets can go back for generations. They can be about suicides, homicides, incest, abortions, addictions, public loss of face, financial disaster, etc. All the secrets get acted out. This is the power of toxic shame. The pain and suffering of shame generate automatic and unconscious defenses. Freud called these defenses by various names: denial, idealization of parents, repression of emotions and dissociation from emotions. What is important to note is that we can’t know what we don’t know. Denial, idealization, repression and dissociation are unconscious survival mechanisms. Because they are unconscious, we lose touch with the shame, hurt and pain they cover up. We cannot heal what we cannot feel. So without recovery, our toxic shame gets carried for generations.

The higher the heel, the better you feel.

I’m a realist. Just because you had sex once doesn’t mean you have to fall in love.

If our primary caregivers are shame-based, they will act shameless and pass their toxic shame onto us. There is no way to teach self-value if one does not value oneself. Toxic shame is multigenerational. It is passed from one generation to the next. Shame-based people find other shame-based people and get married. As each member of a couple carries the shame from his or her own family system, their marriage will be grounded in their shame-core. The major outcome of this will be a lack of intimacy. It’s difficult to let someone get close to you if you feel defective and flawed as a human being. Shame-based couples maintain nonintimacy through poor communication, nonproductive circular fighting, games, manipulation, vying for control, withdrawal, blaming and confluence. Confluence is the agreement never to disagree. Confluence creates pseudointimacy.

Lots of famous people are late bloomers. My father says it’s an advantage to be a late bloomer. Because when good things start happening, you’re ready for it.

no matter who broke your heart or how long it takes to heal, you'll never get through it without your friends

Why do magazines do this to women?” Miranda complains now, glaring at Vogue. “It’s all about creating insecurity. Trying to make women feel like they’re not good enough. And when women don’t feel like they’re good enough, guess what?” “What?” I ask, picking up the grocery bag. “Men win. That’s how they keep us down,” she concludes. “Except the problem with women’s magazines is that they’re written by women,” I point out. “That only shows you how deep this thing goes. Men have made women coconspirators in their own oppression. I mean, if you spend all your time worrying about leg hair, how can you possibly have time to take over the world?

Yow. Guys can be so insecure.

After all, computers crash, people die, relationships fall apart. The best we can do is breathe and reboot.

Only the “˜intercourse’ part.” Miranda makes quotation marks with her fingers. “Why do they call it intercourse anyway? It makes it sound like it’s some kind of conversation. Which it isn’t. It’s penetration, pure and simple. There’s no give-and-take involved.” “It’s an act of war,” Miranda objects, getting heated. “The penis is saying, “˜Let me in,’ and the vagina is saying, “˜Get the hell away from me, creep.

I really liked it.” She covers her mouth in horror. “If I like sex, do you think it means I can’t be a feminist?” “No.” I shake my head. “Because being a feminist -- I think it means being in charge of your sexuality. You decide who you want to have sex with. It means not trading your sexuality for… other things.” “Like marrying some gross guy who you’re not in love with just so you can have a nice house with a picket fence.” “Or marrying a rich old geezer. Or a guy who expects you to cook him dinner every night and take care of the children,” I say, thinking of Samantha. “Or a guy who makes you have sex with him whenever he wants, even if you don’t,” Miranda concludes. We look at each other in triumph, as if we’ve finally solved one of the world’s great problems.

She was courteous but not condescending, a treatment children welcome as unusual. Her bearing reminded Ursula of one of those women who are sometimes interviewed on TV, with a caption pointing out to younger audiences that they are magical and did great things in the past, like Julie Andrews or Madonna. Her waist was set high, and she had the kind of stance that said, I was a sexy blonde once, but also the wrinkled forehead and the glint of an intelligence never patronized by Bridget Jones or Carrie Bradshaw that added, And luckily, I got over it.

—¿Qué es eso? —Señalo su copa. —Un cosmopolitan. —Abro los ojos asombrada por su elección y suelto una carcajada inesperada—. ¿Qué? Me gusta el vodka con arándanos, pero suena mucho mejor pedirlo así. Tiene más glamur. —¿Eso no es lo que beben las chicas de quince años? —Las chicas de quince años, Carrie Bradshaw y Rodrigo Silva —responde sacando pecho y riéndose conmigo. —¿Carrie Bradshaw? —Tengo una hermana mayor, me tragué todas las temporadas de «Sexo en Nueva York». —Hace una pausa y alza las cejas recalcando sus siguientes palabras—: Dos veces. —¿Dos veces? —La primera, obligado. La segunda, sólo por placer.

Babies! That’s all it’s about. Who ever knew the world would be all about babies?” Samantha shouts. “Every time I see a baby, I swear, I want to throw up,” Miranda says. “I did throw up once.” I nod eagerly. “I saw a filthy bib, and that was it.” “Why don’t these people just get cats and a litter box?” Samantha asks.

He’s probably one of those “love the one you’re with” guys -- meaning he automatically goes after whatever woman happens to be around when he’s feeling horny." "Just another reason why I’ll never get married," I say, getting out of the car. “Oh, Carrie.” He sighs. “I feel sorry for you, then. I worry that you’ll never find true love.

There is also enmeshment and boundary confusion between the daughter and mother. The daughter is often carrying the mother’s repressed anger and sadness about the father. This feels overwhelming since these are deeply repressed emotions. Therefore, to starve and avoid eating is a protection against feeling these overwhelming emotions.

When you're young, your whole life is about the pursuit of fun. Then, you grow up and learn to be cautious. You could break a bone or a heart. You look before you leap and sometimes you don't leap at all because there's not always someone there to catch you. And in life, there's no safety net. When did it stop being fun and start being scary?

On the other hand, it seemed to be working. For Samantha, anyway. And in comparison, my own relationship with Bernard was sorely lacking. Not only in sex, but in the simple fact that I still wasn’t sure I was ever going to see him again. I guess the best thing about living with a guy is that you know you’re going to see him again. I mean, he has to come home at some point, right?

When children have shame-based parents, they identify with them. This is the first step in the child’s internalizing shame because the children carry their parent’s shame. ABANDONMENT: THE LEGACY OF BROKEN MUTUALITY Shame is internalized when one is abandoned. Abandonment is the precise term to describe how one loses one’s authentic self and ceases to exist psychologically. Children cannot know who they are without reflective mirrors. Mirroring is done by one’s primary caregivers and is crucial in the first years of life. Abandonment includes the loss of mirroring. Parents who are shut down emotionally (all shame-based parents) cannot mirror and affirm their children’s emotions.

Blushing manifests the exposure, the unexpectedness, the involuntary nature of shame. In On Shame and the Search for Identity Helen Lynd writes, “One’s feeling is involuntarily exposed; one is uncovered.” Blushing is the manifestation of our human limits. The ability to blush is a metaphor for our essentially limited humanity. With blushing comes the impulse to “cover one’s face,” “bury one’s face,” “save face,” or “sink into the ground.”With blushing we know we’ve made a mistake. Why would we have such a capacity if mistakes were not part of our essential nature? Blushing as a manifestation of healthy shame keeps us grounded. It reminds us of our core human boundary. It is a signal for us not to get carried away with our own excellence.

I've become a handmaiden to other people’s relationships. Aiding and abetting. And now I’m al alone. Thank God for Miranda. I’ll always have her. Miranda will never have a relationship. So where the hell is she? “Having sex,” she repeats. She slides onto the cushion. “I met a guy and we’ve been having nonstop sex for the last two days. And the worst thing about it? I couldn’t poop. I honestly could not poop until he finally left this morning.” “He’s not the best-looking guy. But I told myself that looks aren’t everything. And he really is smart. Which can be a turn-on. I’ve always said I’d rather be with a smart, ugly guy than a goodlooking dumb guy. Because what are you going to talk about with a dumb guy?” “So then,” Miranda continues, “we’re walking through the Mews -- that cute little cobblestoned street -- and suddenly he pushes me up against the wall and starts making out with me!” “I hardly know him,” she giggles, “but so what? If it’s right, it’s right, don’t you think?

When our e-motions are not mirrored and named, we lose contact with one of our vital human powers. Parents who are out of touch with their own emotions cannot model those emotions for their children. They are out of touch and shut down. They are psychically numb. They are not even aware of what they are feeling. Their children have to unconsciously carry their feelings for them. I cannot overemphasize the damage that occurs when our emotions are shame bound. Modern neuroscientists like Joseph Le Doux, Allen N. Shore and Diana Fosha have presented compelling evidence that our true sense of self is based on our authentic core feelings. Silvan Tompkins has shown that our feelings are the primary motivating source in our lives. Without acknowledging our core feelings, we lose our sense of self. Our false selves are based on our survival skills. Our false selves are like the script for a play. The script tells us what feelings we should have. We learn to accept the scripted feelings as authentic. The denial of emotions is actually sanctified by our most sacred traditions of parenting rules. These rules especially shame children by denying emotions. Emotions are considered weak; I heard that throughout my childhood. “Emotions show weakness. Don’t be so emotional.

This transformation involves three dynamics: 1. The identification with shame-based models and the carrying of their unexpressed shame. 2. The trauma of abandonment and the shame binding all one’s feelings, needs and drives. 3. The interconnection and magnification of visual memories or scenes, and the retaining of shaming auditory and kinesthetic imprints.

Dissmell is the affect that monitors our drive for hunger. It was primarily developed as a survival mechanism. As we’ve become more complex, its use has extended interpersonally. Prejudice and rage against strangers (the ones who are not like us) have terrible consequences. Dissmell is a major sexuality factor. Disgust follows the same pattern as dissmell. Originally a hunger drive auxiliary, it has been extended to interpersonal relations. Divorces are often dominated by disgust. Victims of abuse carry various degrees of anger and disgust. Rapists who kill operate on disgust, anger and sex fused together.

When our e-motions are not mirrored and named, we lose contact with one of our vital human powers. Parents who are out of touch with their own emotions cannot model those emotions for their children. They are out of touch and shut down. They are psychically numb. They are not even aware of what they are feeling. Their children have to unconsciously carry their feelings for them.

Arnold was scapegoated from the moment he set foot in the school. He was laughed at, made fun of and ridiculed by one group of girls. Some days he was hit with water bombs and sacks of horse shit as he waited for the bus. This treatment continued until the middle of his senior year. For two years Arnold suffered almost chronic shaming. This was an excruciating experience. High school is the time of puberty. And puberty is a time of intense exposure and vulnerability. Whatever toxic shame a person carries from childhood will be tested in high school. Often teenage groups look for a scapegoat, someone everyone can dump and project their shame onto. This was Arnold’s fate. He was viciously shamed by his female peer group. This accounted for his problem with women.

SHAME AS AN IDENTITY (THE INTERNALIZATION PROCESS) Any human emotion can become internalized. When internalized, an emotion stops functioning as an emotion and becomes an identity. Internalization involves at least three processes: 1. Identification with unreliable and shame-based models (faulty attachment bonding), which is the source of “carried” shame. 2. The trauma of abandonment, which severs the interpersonal bridge and the binding of feelings, needs and drives with shame. 3. The interconnection of memory imprints, which forms collages of shame.

What?” She gasps. “Who did you do it with? You can’t go out there and pick up some random stranger. Oh no, Carrie. You didn’t. You didn’t pick up some guy at a bar.

High school is the time of puberty. And puberty is a time of intense exposure and vulnerability. Whatever toxic shame a person carries from childhood will be tested in high school. Often teenage groups look for a scapegoat, someone everyone can dump and project their shame onto. This was Arnold’s fate. He was viciously shamed by his female peer group. This accounted for his problem with women.

The most common addiction to an emotion is that form of intensified anger we call rage. Rage is the only emotion that can’t be controlled by shame. Actually, the intensified anger we call rage is anger that is “carried” or that has been shamed. Anger, like sexuality, is a preserving emotional energy. Anger is the self-preserving feeling. Our anger is energy by which we protect ourselves. Our anger is our strength. Once our identity has become shame-based, we use our anger in an abortive way. When our shame is hooked, the shamed anger becomes rage, tries to protect us and does its job. Rage frightens those around us.

Carrie Bradshaw fell in Dior, I fell in Debenhams. It was May 2008, and it was spectacular. Uncomfortable heels + slippy floor + head turned by a cocktail dress = thwack. Arms stretched overhead, teeth cracking on floor tiles, chest and knees breaking the fall. It was theatrical, exaggerated, a perfect 6.0. And it was Significant Moment #1 in discovering that I had grade-three breast cancer.

Toxic shame is multigenerational. It is passed from one generation to the next. Shame-based people find other shame-based people and get married. As each member of a couple carries the shame from his or her own family system, their marriage will be grounded in their shame-core. The major outcome of this will be a lack of intimacy. It’s difficult to let someone get close to you if you feel defective and flawed as a human being. Shame-based couples maintain nonintimacy through poor communication, nonproductive circular fighting, games, manipulation, vying for control, withdrawal, blaming and confluence. Confluence is the agreement never to disagree. Confluence creates pseudointimacy. When a child is born to these shame-based parents, the deck is stacked from the beginning. The job of parents is to model. Modeling includes how to be a man or woman; how to relate intimately to another person; how to acknowledge and express emotions; how to fight fairly; how to have physical, emotional and intellectual boundaries; how to communicate; how to cope and survive life’s unending problems; how to be self-disciplined; and how to love oneself and another. Shame-based parents cannot do any of these. They simply don’t know how.

the process whereby healthy shame is transformed into toxic shame. The process is called the “absolutizing” or “internalization” process. The healthy feeling of shame is lost, and a frozen state of being emerges, whereby a person believes himself to be flawed and defective as a human being. This transformation involves three dynamics: 1. The identification with shame-based models and the carrying of their unexpressed shame. 2. The trauma of abandonment and the shame binding all one’s feelings, needs and drives. 3. The interconnection and magnification of visual memories or scenes, and the retaining of shaming auditory and kinesthetic imprints.

Our anger is the energy that gives us strength. The Incredible Hulk becomes the huge, powerful hulk when he needs the energy and power to take care of others. Our sadness is an energy we discharge in order to heal. As we discharge the energy over the losses relating to our basic needs, we can integrate the shock of those losses and adapt to reality. Sadness is painful. We try to avoid it. Discharging sadness releases the energy involved in our emotional pain. To hold it in is to freeze the pain within us. The therapeutic slogan is that grieving is the “healing feeling.” Fear releases an energy that warns us of danger to our basic needs. Fear is an energy leading to our discernment and wisdom. Guilt is our morality shame and guards our conscience. It tells us we have transgressed our values. It moves us to take action and change. Shame warns us not to try to be more or less than human. Shame signals our essential limitations. Shame limits our desire for pleasure and our interest and curiosity. We could not really be free without our shame. There is an anonymous saying, “Of all the masks of freedom, discipline (limits) is the hardest to understand.” We cannot be truly free without having limits. Joy is the exhilarating energy that emerges when all our needs are being met. We want to sing, run and jump with joy. The energy of joy signals that all is well. Dissmell is the affect that monitors our drive for hunger. It was primarily developed as a survival mechanism. As we’ve become more complex, its use has extended interpersonally. Prejudice and rage against strangers (the ones who are not like us) have terrible consequences. Dissmell is a major sexuality factor. Disgust follows the same pattern as dissmell. Originally a hunger drive auxiliary, it has been extended to interpersonal relations. Divorces are often dominated by disgust. Victims of abuse carry various degrees of anger and disgust. Rapists who kill operate on disgust, anger and sex fused together.

Most gays carry an excessive amount of shame, as there is particularly strong and widespread shaming of boys who don’t display the traditional masculine traits and behaviors. If you are a gay man or woman, your wounded inner preschooler needs to hear that it is perfectly okay to be who you are.

It’s not just the same old row about mental load, about who should be doing the utterly tedious bedtime routine while simultaneously preparing a nutritious dinner brimming with fresh veg, but also the deep chasm over The Anxiety of It All. Who is carrying The Anxiety of It All? Is it the person who is prone to anxiety? Or is it that person because one of you refuses to carry the anxiety and cunningly off-loads it onto the other one?

If we humans are essentially spiritual, then when we are abandoned, abused or enmeshed, we are spiritually violated. Indeed, when our caretakers acted shamelessly, they were playing God. Healthy shame tells us we are finite, limited and prone to mistakes. When our caretakers acted shamelessly, we were forced to carry their shame. Our self-esteem was wounded by that shame. Co-dependence is the outcome of this abuse.

Perhaps the greatest wound a shame-based person carries is the inability to be intimate in a relationship. This inability flows directly out of the fundamental dishonesty at the core of toxic shame. To be a false self, always hiding and filled with secrets, precludes any possibility of honesty in relationships. As I’ve suggested elsewhere, shame-based people always seek out relationships with shame-based people. Hockey players don’t usually hang out with professional bridge players. They don’t know each other’s rules. We tend to find those who play by the same rules. Secretiveness, dishonesty and game-playing were certainly the substance of my relational history. During my drunken

Some love stories aren't epic novels. Some are short stories, but that doesn't make them any less filled with love.

You can keep your iconic single women, Carrie Bradshaw, Mindy Lahiri, even Liz Lemon; because my model for living as a successful single woman is a fictitious bird from a children’s book.

These are beliefs passed on from generation to generation, the so-called “sins of the fathers.” Again, I refer to Alice Miller, who cites examples of such beliefs: 1. A feeling of duty produces love. 2. Hatred can be done away with by forbidding it. 3. Parents deserve respect because they are parents. (Note: Any 15-year-old can be a parent without any training. We give telephone operators more training than parents. We need telephone operators, but we need good parents more.) [Emphasis mine.] 4. Children are undeserving of respect simply because they are children. 5. Obedience makes a child strong. 6. A high degree of self-esteem is harmful. 7. A low-degree of self-esteem makes a person altruistic. 8. Tenderness (doting) is harmful. 9. Responding to a child’s needs is wrong. 10. Severity and coldness toward a child give him a good preparation for life. 11. A pretense of gratitude is better than honest ingratitude. 12. The way you behave is more important than the way you really are. 13. Neither parents nor God would survive being offended. 14. The body is something dirty and disgusting. 15. Strong feelings are harmful. 16. Parents are creatures free of drives and guilt. 17. Parents are always right.3 Probably no modern parents embody all of the above. In fact, some have accepted and imposed the opposite extreme of these beliefs with results just as abusive. But most of these beliefs are carried unconsciously and are activated in times of stress and crisis. The fact is, parents have little choice about such beliefs until they have worked through and clarified their relationships with their own parents.

Toxic shame is multigenerational. It is passed from one generation to the next. Shame-based people find other shame-based people and get married. As each member of a couple carries the shame from his or her own family system, their marriage will be grounded in their shame-core. The major outcome of this will be a lack of intimacy. It’s difficult to let someone get close to you if you feel defective and flawed as a human being. Shame-based couples maintain nonintimacy through poor communication, nonproductive circular fighting, games, manipulation, vying for control, withdrawal, blaming and confluence. Confluence is the agreement never to disagree. Confluence creates pseudointimacy.

What is important to note is that we can’t know what we don’t know. Denial, idealization, repression and dissociation are unconscious survival mechanisms. Because they are unconscious, we lose touch with the shame, hurt and pain they cover up. We cannot heal what we cannot feel. So without recovery, our toxic shame gets carried for generations.

They say nothing lasts forever …dreams change, trends come and go, but friendships never go out of style.

When children have shame-based parents, they identify with them. This is the first step in the child’s internalizing shame because the children carry their parent’s shame.

I like my money right where I can see it, hanging in my closet and who am I to argue with Carrie Bradshaw?