Everything is ultimately peculiar and ultimately ridiculous.

Madness, mayhem, erotic vandalism, devastation of innumerable souls - while we scream and perish, History licks a finger and turns the page.

Look at your body— A painted puppet, a poor toy Of jointed parts ready to collapse, A diseased and suffering thing With a head full of false imaginings. —The Dhammapada

Nonexistence never hurt anyone. Existence hurts everyone.

Most people learn to save themselves by artificially limiting the content of consciousness.

It has always seemed to me that my existence consisted purely and exclusively of nothing but the most outrageous nonsense.

The only value of this world lay in its power - at certain times - to suggest another world.

Officially there are no fates worse than death. Unofficially, there is a profusion of such fates. For some people, just living with the thought that they will die is a fate worse than death itself.

Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are - hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones.

To my mind, a well-developed sense of humor is the surest indication of a person's humanity, no matter how black and bitter that humor may be.

No one gives up on something until it turns on them, whether or not that thing is real or unreal.

And I sometimes think that a moment of touching is the difference between complete utter despair and the ability to carry on.

Keep a spur handy.

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide. ... And the choice goes by forever t'wixt that darkness and that light.

I would still describe China as a vast, invigorating puzzle that will never make sense to my western upbringing.

As long as your going to be thinking anyway, think big.

Whoever would undertake some atrocious enterprise should act as if it were already accomplished should impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.

I don’t know what’s gonna happen in 30 years, and that’s…awesome.

A purified mind can grasp anything. It can dive deep into the subtlest subject and understand even transcendental things.

When it gets to this point, it's just hard to pull the trigger.

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain and nourish all the world.