It is a tragic paradox that the very qualities that have led to man's extraordinary capacity for success are also those most likely to destroy him.

So-called "inspiration" is no more than an extreme example of a process which constantly goes on in the minds of all of us.

Imagination flourishes best in solitude.

With the exception of certain rodents, no other vertebrate except Homo sapiens habitually destroys members of his own species.

The ecstatic state of wholeness is bound to be transient because it has no part in the total pattern of ‘adaptation through maladaptation’ which is characteristic of our species…the hunger of imagination, the desire and pursuit of the whole, take origin from the realization that something is missing, from awareness of incompleteness.

All the world loves a lover, and a lover loves all the world.

It is true that many creative people fail to make mature personal relationships, and some are extremely isolated. It is also true that, in some instances, trauma, in the shape of early separation or bereavement, has steered the potentially creative person toward developing aspects of his personality which can find fulfillment in comparative isolation. But this does not mean that solitary, creative pursuits are themselves pathological.