My father lived by the philosophy, 'Be yourself, because everyone else is taken,' and he made sure I did, too. Whatever I wanted to do, he supported me. I don't mean that I was spoilt - he didn't believe in material gifts - but he watched my back whi...
Meaning lies in the confrontation of contradiction - the coincidencia apositorum. That’s what we really feel, not these rational schemes that are constantly beating us over the head with the “thou shalts” and “thou should”, but rather a rec...
Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.
I always tell girls who say they want to start a band but don't have any talent, 'Well, neither do I.' I mean, I can carry a tune, but anyone who picks up a bass can figure it out. You don't have to have magic unicorn powers.
When I'm talking about depression, I'm talking about the more severe forms of depression, and I think that conceptualising as a form of grief is probably not the most effective way of looking at it. I mean, at the end of the day, people suffer enormo...
I mean... if you're raised as a decent human being, killing somebody is against every moral thing you've ever been taught. And so, generally, in combat it's 'krauts,' the 'gooks,' the 'yanks' - whatever you want to do to try and make it so that it's ...
Just because life is full of craziness doesn't mean you must go crazy. You can experience outer chaos and still find inner peace. Nothing even needs to change outside of you for you to find calm inside of you. This inner calm is available at all time...
But writers experience the world and themselves in a unique way. We look for meaning. We see it even when we are not paying attention, which is seldom because, as writers, paying attention is what we do. We are scribes to the ticking of the days, and...
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lur...
Passing from legality to subversion, the need of finding a minimum stimulus with a maximum effect appears—an effect that through its impact justifies the risk taken and pays for it. During certain historical periods, at the level of the object, thi...
Manhattan in the morning is a living stream of Purpose; everyone's got a place to be and a problem on their mind. That doesn't mean it's and unfriendly place -- just busy and preoccupied. Personally, I love it. I'm a social creature but there are tim...
I mean simply to say that I want my characters to suggest the background in themselves, even when it is not visible. I want them to be so powerfully realized that we cannot imagine them apart from their physical and social context even when we see th...
Everyone is in such a hurry. People haven’t found meaning in their lives, so they’re running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running. On...
To complete your daily mental hygiene, observe any part of you that is upset or anxious, and offer that part of yourself the following simple wishes: 'May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering.' Repeat this until you actually ...
Interestingly, I matured as a musician and as an artist before I matured as a man. What I mean by that is, I was ready to be completely vulnerable and honest with myself and unapologetic when it comes to how I express myself in my medium. But I wasn'...
You must know that you are always near to everything! Nothing is far from you! Life means to be close to everything, to be close to death, to smile, to hot, to cold, to joy, to sorrow! We live in a very small island surrounded by everything, surround...
When I am back in old Blighty, I am surrounded by the old and familiar concerns: New Labour, Europe, the Middle East and the rest. If you live in Britain, you will know what I mean - except you won't, because you will take it for granted that this is...
Yes,I believe that they do.But I think that with our human limitations we're not always able to understand the explanations.But you see,Meg,just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist." "I like to understand thing...
(there is) no other means of escaping from one's consciousness than to deny it, to look upon it as an organic disease of the terrestrial intelligence - a disease which we must endeavor to cure by an action which must appear to us an action of violent...
No map to help us find the tranquil flat lands, clearings calm, fields without mean fences. Rolling down the other side of life our compass is the sureness of ourselves. Time may make us rugged, ragged round the edges, but know and understand that lo...
Religion can only be a means to a set of values cherished by its living adherents. If those values relate only to a past or a presumed afterlife, it is a sign that religion has become a goal serving the ends of a priest or a demagogue and rest of the...
