We do need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance, and old-fashioned gumption. We really do.

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.

The love of Arda was set in your hearts by Ilúvatar, and he does not plant to no purpose.

It is a law of the story-teller's art that he does not tell a story. It is the listener who tells it. The story-teller does but provide him with the stimuli.

There is no dramatic difference in happiness on the part of people who are wealthy.

We must realize that our destiny is strongly linked to the destiny of the poorest on this planet.

Time the great destroyer of other men's happiness, only enlarges the patrimony of literature to its possessor.

Years ago I heard the Indian Jesuit Raimundo Panikkar say: Expect Nothing.

In many climbing cultures, it seems that dirty ethics and poor style are acceptable. In mine they are not.

The authority of Scripture is greater than the comprehension of the whole of man's reason.

I'm never going to retire. I'll die with my boots on.

I don't have any regrets about the album [Veedon Fleece]. But it's the same old story - an album is basically 35 or 40 minutes of what you do. It's 'part' of what you do.