No matter what we predict for our futures, we're always wrong anyway. The only sensible thing to do is to live this life as it is right now. Leave what happens after you die till after you die.

Disappointment is just the action of your brain readjusting itself to reality after discovering things are not the way you thought they were.

How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!

You can always improve your situation. But you do so by facing it, not by running away.

Compassion is the ability to see what needs doing right now and the willingness to do it right now.

You can't function in society if you don't involve yourself in the fictions society accepts about time. But you do so with the understanding that you're playing a game.

The truth comes when you can see that your self-image is just a convenient reference point and nothing more, and that you as you had imagined yourself do not exist.

Do what you do as well as you possibly can. That's Buddhist morality.

Truly compassionate action arises spontaneously without thought and is carried out in real action with no anticipation of reward and, indeed, no concept of a doer of that action.

Your role is to do and say the things that need to be done and said from your unique perspective.

Reality's all you've got. But here's the real secret, the real miracle: it's enough.

His ruby red rimmed moist eyes were two glasses of cranberry. He wore a cashmere sweater the color of Earl Grey tea...

Zen probably won’t solve a single one of our problems. What it might do is help us relate differently to what we consider problems.

What objectivity and the study of philosophy requires is not an 'open mind,' but an active mind - a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them criticially.

Of children as of procreation -- the pleasure momentary, the posture ridiculous, the expense damnable

I don't think it's like eastern mysticism, which leaves the person whole. It's really another form of cancer, television.

My parents felt that acting was far too insecure. Don't ask me what made them think that painting would be more secure.

I felt sick. Buying Kisten’s and my safety from Piscary was so wrong. But it was either that or deal with a demon, and I’d rather keep my soul clean and let my morals get dingy.

They didn't understand what they were doing. I'm afraid that will be on the tombstone of the human race.

If the school sends out children with a desire for knowledge and some idea of how to acquire and use it, it will have done its work.

I pretty much make time for that weekly manicure.