When somebody goes outside the cultural norms, the culture has to protect itself.

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.

People who put principles before people are people who hate people. They don’t much care about how well it works, just about how right it is … they may even like it better if it inflicts enough pain.

Holy gods. He'd frozen the whole damn lake. He was THAT powerful?

I think that if you don't like something and it's not easy, you shouldn't be doing it.

When spring comes to Paris the humblest mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise.

For you to have real love, you need to be able to move past your self.

Well, whatever I am, I am the blonde!

Creative people tend to pass the responsibility for getting down to brass tacks to others.

So the idea that you could put Kurds, Shiite Arabs, and Sunni Arabs in a nice, liberal, federal system in Iraq in a short amount of time, six months or a year, boggles the mind.

Readers must be given room to bring their own emotions to a piece so crammed with emotional content; the writer must tenaciously resist explaining why the material is so moving.

I am not reggae, I am me. I am bigger than the limits that are put on me. It all has to do with the individual journey.