philosophical

Sometimes I don't feel as if I'm a person at all. I'm just a collection of other people's ideas.

Those who complimented me were those who understood me the least.

God bless the lawn mower, he thought. Who was the fool who made January first New Year__ Day? No, they should set a man to watch the grasses across a million Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa lawns, and on that morning when it was long enough for cutting, instead of ratchets and horns and yelling, there should be a great swelling symphony of lawn mowers reaping fresh grass upon the prairie lands. Instead of confetti and serpentine, people should throw grass spray at each other on the one day each year that really represents Beginning!

If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate.

Good apprentices know that they are in the process of becoming masters and that as responsible artisans they must seek to improve upon the knowledge entrusted to them and go further.

Evil doesn't just go away.

We are, now, just as valuable, intelligent, and real as Eliot or any of his contemporaries. Our ideas and experiences are just as sound and true. Our passion to save our world from what we see it becoming is just as authentic. We are always the Lost Generation, but with different accoutrements.

So the starry sky turns round like a millstone, always bringing some trouble, and men being born or dying.

It's best to locate the mind first before launching the 'missiles of contention'.

There is a difference between the truth and what we wish were true.

You cannot create the life you need unless you pass through the death of the life you no longer want _ it's just not possible. Deconstruction always comes before reconstruction.

Here I was alone, and could take my own time. In other parts of the world one always seems to be in a great hurry, tearing from one spot to the other at a gallop, but out yonder, perhaps because distances are so great, time don't seem to matter; you can jog along, breathing fresh air and enjoying the scenery and your own thoughts about women and home and hunting and booze and money and what may lie over the next hill.

Without the quest, there can be no epiphany.

Cheap things are real. Cheap things are accessible. Cheap things are made for us because we don__ have any money, and even though we__ like to think we__l have it someday, we know we don__ now.

How do you keep your emotions so under control, Nicolas? Even when you're doing things that have to bother you?" She glanced up at him to make certain her question hadn't upset him."I don't do anything unless I believe it is necessary. If it's necessary then there's no reason for me to be bothered by it. The universe has a natural order. I do my best to flow with it and not try to control things outside of myself. The truth is, control is a myth. You can't control another person or even an event. You can only control yourself. So that's what I do.

The mentality of who is your uncle__n ethnocentric way of thinking, is one of the leading causes of South Sudan__ internal conflicts.

It meant leading my meta-life. Meta-life is the opposite of living in the moment. It's the syndrome of simultaneously having an experience and being an observer commenting on and questioning the experience. By observing something, you change it, sometimes for the better, but in my experience, usually for the worse. You know youre in the meta-life when you're critiquing an experience while you're having it (This is fun but it would be more fun if . . .), trying to talk yourself into happiness because you should feel it (It's a beautiful day, and all I really need to be happy are fresh air and sunshine), or worrying that youre not getting any closer to the "Big Important Things" (Sure, this is a great date, but what are the odds this guy would ever marry someone like me?).

The only difference between a prayer and a curse is the one who stands to profit.