When you stop thinking about yourself all the time, a certain sense of repose overtakes you.

Does anybody have a cigarette? I'm looking forward to that first smoke. I've been looking forward to [it] for about 30 years.

Nothing can stop you from thinking. The human mind is designed to think continually.

My son and my daughter have both been an incredibly sustaining force, especially through this recent bad patch [of health]. So, I've been blessed and grateful for their company and for their assistance.

I felt like if any two people had any kind of sexual affinity for each other they had to sleep with each other immediately, otherwise it was a terrible betrayal and waste...Fortunately, I'm relieved of those obsessions now. It's really wonderful. It's really wonderful not feeling you have to sleep with everybody.

This particular school of Zen has always considered itself the Marines of the spiritual world, so it has a kind of bias against conceptual thinking in favor of a very rigorous physical life.

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded, Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed, Everybody knows that the war is over, Everybody knows the good guys lost.