“As is so often the way, what we have suppressed and overlooked issomething startlingly obvious. The difficulty is that it is so obvious andbasic that one can hardly find the words for it. The Germans call it aHintergedanke, an apprehension lying tacitly in the back of our mindswhich we cannot easily admit, even to ourselves. The sensation of "I" asa lonely and isolated center of being is so powerful andcommonsensical, and so fundamental to our modes of speech andthought, to our laws and social institutions, that we cannot experienceselfhood except as something superficial in the scheme of the universe. Iseem to be a brief light that flashes but once in all the aeons of time—arare, complicated, and all-too-delicate organism on the fringe ofbiological evolution, where the wave of life bursts into individual,sparkling, and multicolored drops that gleam for a moment only tovanish forever. Under such conditioning it seems impossible and evenabsurd to realize that myself does not reside in the drop alone, but in thewhole surge of energy which ranges from the galaxies to the nuclearfields in my body. At this level of existence "I" am immeasurably old;my forms are infinite and their comings and goings are simply thepulses or vibrations of a single and eternal flow of energy.”

“In a relativistic universe you don't cling to anything, you learn to swim. And you know what swimming is - it's kind of a relaxed attitude with the water. In which you don't keep yourself afloat by holding the water, but by a certain giving to it.”

“Hospitals should be arranged in such a way as to make being sick an interesting experience. One learns a great deal sometimes from being sick. ”

“You will never get to the irreducible definition of anything because you will never be able to explain why you want to explain, and so on. The system will gobble itself up.”

“I have always thought that all philosophical debates are ultimately between the partisans of structure and the partisans of "goo.”

“In reality there are no separate events. Life moves along like water, it's all connected to the source of the river is connected to the mouth and the ocean.”

“When you find out that there was never anything in the dark side to be afraid of … Nothing is left but to love.”

“What’s it gonna be like, dying? To go to sleep and never, never, never wake up.Well, a lot of things it’s not gonna be like. It’s not going to be like being buried alive. It’s not going to be like being in the darkness forever.I tell you what — it’s going to be as if you never had existed at all. Not only you, but everything else as well. That just there was never anything, there’s no one to regret it — and there’s no problem. Well, think about that for a while — it’s kind of a weird feeling when you really think about it, when you really imagine.[The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are ]”

“Hurrying and delaying are alike ways of trying to resist the present.”

“The brush must draw by itself. This cannot happen if one does not practice constantly. But neither can it happen if one makes an effort.”

“Stay in the center, and you will be ready to move in any direction.”