Both of us victims of the same twentieth-century plague. Not the Black Death, this time; the Gray Life.

That’s what the human brain is there for—to turn the chaos of given experience into a set of manageable symbols. Sometimes the symbols correspond fairly closely to some of the aspects of the external reality behind our experience; then you have science and common sense. Sometimes, on the contrary, the symbols have almost no connection with external reality; then you have paranoia and delirium. More often there’s a mixture, part realistic and part fantastic; that’s religion.

In the course of history many more people have died for their drink and their dope than have died for their religion or their country.

It is natural to believe in God when you're alone-- quite alone, in the night, thinking about death.

Being cared for when one is dead is less satisfactory than being cared for when one is alive.

Our goal is to discover that we have always been where we ought to be

No Romeo-and-Juliet acts, no nonsense about Love with a large L, none of that popular song claptrap with its skies of blue, dreams come true, heaven with you. Just sensuality for its own sake.