I think metaphysics is good if it improves everyday life; otherwise forget it.

The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans. The present is our only reality.

When you live in the shadow of insanity, the appearance of another mind that thinks and talks as yours does is something close to a blessed event.

To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.

The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.

One of the most moral acts is to create a space in which life can move forward.

Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think that what I have to say has more lasting value.

The truth knocks on the door and you say, go away, I'm looking for the truth, and it goes away. Puzzling.

My favorite piece of technical writing: Assembly of Japanese bicycle require great peace of mind.

Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions.

Any effort that has self-glorification as its final endpoint is bound to end in disaster.

When you look down the length of your chain and see it is made mostly of weak links it is time to pull out the bolt cutters.

In politics, the people I most despise are those who have no values.

A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with every-day herbs.

I've said it before and can only repeat that I owe everything to Boudin and I attribute my success to him. I came to be fascinated by his studies, the products of what I call instantaneity.

We know how to speak many falsehoods that resemble real things, but we know, when we will, how to speak true things.

I used to love the Beatles and the Stones and I'd always want to hang out with them, even though they were about seven years older.

A too-expected image (cliché) will never seem right, even if it is.

I have always got medicine I want to give to people.

We will always want films ... that basically are centred on young people, because young people is the way we live on, we older people, insofar as we live on.

This is no time to lend money, especially upon bare friendship without security.