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Quotes

I'm practically paralyzed under a flood of ideas, none of which is particularly important, but all of which give me an initial sting of glee and, afterward, scheduling problems.

Because they didn't know better, they called it civilization, when it was part of their slavery.

Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

It may seem difficult at first, but everything is difficult at first.

The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

Aim low. Fail frequently. Surprisingly, that's the path to freedom.

Writing is creating a map for your readers.

The bad news is you are falling through the air; nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is there is no ground.

Love needs no protection; it is its own protection.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

These dignified farmers I have met see the skyscrapers of the developed nations as the tombstones of the human race.

… you can do almost anything or go almost anywhere, if you're not in a hurry.

Pain does not create a long-lasting memory, but the memory of luxury exerts itself for ever.

Abstract words are ancient coins whose concrete images in the busy give-and-take of talk have worn away with use.

One martini is just right. Two martinis are too many. Three martinis are never enough.

When I have a terrible need of, shall I say the word, religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.

We have allowed our professions and institutions to assume a level of control that is beyond their competence.

I feel a certain calm. There is safety in the midst of danger. What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

Writing is easy, I just open a vein and bleed.

Pleasure is the object, the duty, the goal of all rational creatures.

We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.

And the old drivers are no longer helpful. In the past, we may have been able to “power through”, by setting goals, and by positive thinking, and with self-discipline and effort. We now have the intuition that this sort of self-forcing cannot be sustained.

Don't forget that you are the product of a culture that went stark raving mad about ten thousand years ago. Adjust your thinking accordingly.

In a closed society where everybody is guilty, the only crime is getting caught.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

He had talents equal to business, and aspired no higher.

You've got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have *only* your emotions to sell.

Success as a result of industry is a peasant's ideal.

Indeed, the crowning proof of their valour and their strength is that they keep up their superiority without harm to others.

The future cannot be legislated. All that can be done is to anticipate its most important movements and to clear the path for them.

What bores the listener bores the speaker too.

To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.

If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.

We must beware of needless innovations, especially when guided by logic.

The problem with any ideology is that it gives you the answer before you examine the evidence.

This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

Democracy is all about not electing the wrong man-eating lizard.

Writers are desperate people, and when they stop being desperate they stop being writers.

Reality is modest, it won't be seen naked.

The further humans move from hunters to horticulturists to agriculturists to urbanisation to industrialists, the further the sacred recedes, first to heaven, then condensed to monotheism and finally it dies in irony.

We can debug relationships, but it's always good policy to consider the people themselves to be features. People get annoyed when you try to debug them.

The fish rots from the head.

First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.