I'm not talking about the scars that separate your skin, Parker. I'm not blind, I can see those. I'm talking about the scars much deeper than that. The scars that exist within you. The ones you actually try to hide.
I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself.
Money began talking to Ben again--not big money this time, but little money. It niggled and nagged and carped and whined at him, as full of fears and bitterness as a spinster witch. --"Money Talks
Casting my own eye down Fifth Avenue as my belly swelled, I would register with incredulity: Every one of these people came from a woman's cunt.
In the particular dwells the tawdry. In the conceptual dwells the grand, the transcendent, the everlasting. Earthly countries and single malignant boys can go to hell; the idea of countries and the idea of sons triumph for eternity.
I thought at the time that I couldn't be horrified anymore, or wounded. I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already been so damaged that damage itself, in its totality, makes you safe.
Every minute doing one thing is a minute not doing something else. Every choice is another choice not made another path grown over lost.
To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism.
True communication depends upon our being straightforward with one another... But the best way to communicate may be just to sit without saying anything.
We emphasize straightforwardness. You should be true to your feelings, and to your mind, expressing yourself without any reservations. This helps the listener to understand more easily.
When we say something, our subjective intention or situation is always involved. So there is no perfect word; some distortion is always present in a statement.
The true purpose [of Zen] is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes... Zen practice is to open up our small mind.
But as long as you have some fixed idea or are caught by some habitual way of doing things, you cannot appreciate things in their true sense.
There is no particular way in true practice. You should find your own way, and you should know what kind of practice you have right now.
Even when you practice zazen alone, without a teacher, I think you will find some way to tell whether your practice is adequate or not.
I’d been listening to men talk since I arrived in New York City. That’s what men like to do. Talk. Profess like experts. When one finally came along who didn’t say much, I listened.
What's the trick to remembering that a sandwich is masculine? What qualities does it share with anyone in possession of a penis? I'll tell myself that a sandwich is masculine because if left alone for a week or two, it will eventually grow a beard.
Obama's gonna play Santa Claus with the minimum wage. He's got no successes to brag about. He cannot talk about a robust job market. In fact, the very fact he's talking about the minimum wage is evidence there is no robust job market.
Black people don't know what white people are talking about when they talk about a Sister Souljah moment. I tell them it's the moment you meet a proud, beautiful black woman you can never forget.
I told [John Kruesi] I was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back. He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb', etc. I adjusted the reproducer, and the machine rep...
When people start talking about venture capital and finances and how to create this and do that, a lot of it, I swear, it's like sitting in an escrow meeting when all you want to do is buy a house, and you're signing 50 pieces of paper, but you have ...
