If you want to find out what it means to have a society without any rituals, read the New York Times.

Man should not be in the service of society, society should be in the service of man. When man is in the service of society, you have a monster state, and that's what is threatening the world at this minute.

Marriage . . . is not a love affair; it is an ordeal. (92)

The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, 'Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there.' And so it starts.

God is an intelligible sphere-a sphere known to mind, not to the senses-whose center is everywhere and whose circumference nowhere.

The key to the Grail is compassion, 'suffering with,' feeling another's sorrow as if it were your own. The one who finds the dynamo of compassion is the one who's found the Grail.

And then he says, "The writer must be true to truth." And that's a killer, because the only way you can describe a human being truly is by describing his imperfections. The perfect human being is uninteresting - the Buddha who leaves the world, you know. It is the imperfections of life that are lovable. And when the writer sends a dart of the true word, it hurts. But it goes with love. This is what Mann called "erotic irony," the love for that which you are killing with your cruel, analytical word.