The basic idea that the purpose of life is to be happy or is to experience the most favorable ratio of pleasure to suffering or productivity to work or gratification to sacrifice or any of that stuff, which, you know, a couple generations ago, to say that kind of stuff would have made you, you know, a freak - a freak and an Epicurean - and now seems to be so much - simply an unquestioned assumption of the culture that we don't really even talk about it anymore.

People, unless they're paying attention, tend to confuse fanciness with intelligence or authority.

The point of books is to combat loneliness.

Nuclear weapons and TV have simply intensified the consequences of our tendencies, upped the stakes.

You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.

The parts of me that used to think I was different or smarter or whatever, almost made me die.

It's probably hard to feel any sort of Romantic spiritual connection to nature when you have to make your living from it.