When the people clamor to be shielded from reality, when they praise their government for keeping things from them, when they choose to conduct their lives within the limits of whatever fantasy the government supplies, then they are no longer consenting to be governed, they are begging to be ruled.

Stop tolerating in your leaders what you would not tolerate in your friends.

Creativity is an innate function in a human being, as we see in tribal peoples, who spent their considerable leisure time making religious artifacts and sacred art. That is what I would call a direct culture, in that everybody in it is directly in touch with all the elements, both of the culture and of the environment.

My spirit life is also the medium in which I live. It's not something that comes and goes. Without one the other wouldn't exist.

We have a culture that is indirect in the extreme, where by the time you're five years old, you've watched tons of television, and have been subjected to what I call "the age of interruption," where everything is interrupted every minute. We have constant input from TV, computers, fax machines, telephones, etc. It's very hard for a modern American to have two hours of uninterrupted time. I know how it is because I insist on several hours of uninterrupted time each day, and I know how ruthless I have to be to get it.

People are judged continuously everywhere on the most intimate level by the prices on their head. Most of them accept the judgment. It's very hard to have self-respect, or to maintain a state of creativity under these conditions.

The people you have to lie to, own you. The things you have to lie about, own you.