These are some of the characteristics of the state of mind which the creation and appreciation of haiku demand: Selflessness, Loneliness, Grateful Acceptance, Wordlessness, Non-intellectuality, Contradictoriness, Humor, Freedom, Non-morality, Simplicity, Materiality, Love, and Courage.

The importance and unimportance of the self cannot be exaggerated.

A thief running away like mad from a ferocious watch-dog may be a splendid example of Zen.

Mud is the most poetical thing in the world.

Think of Zen, of the Void, of Good and Evil and you are bound hand and foot. Think only and entirely and completely of what you are doing at the moment and you are free as a bird.

I myself think that to have a cat is more important than to have a Bible.

What is essential is not the answer but the questions; the answers indeed are the death of the life that is in the questions.