It's better to live with a sad truth than with all the happy progress talk you get up here in the North.

I think present-day reason is an analogue of the flat earth of the medieval period. If you go too far beyond it you're presumed to fall off, into insanity. And people are very much afraid of that. I think this fear of insanity is comparable to the fear people once had of falling off the edge of the world. Or the fear of heretics. There's a very close analogue there.

That's the classical mind at work, runs fine inside but looks dingy on the surface.

The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans. The present is our only reality.

The funny thing about insane people is that it is kind of the opposite of being a celebrity. Nobody envies you.

I really am a recluse. I just enjoy watching the wind blow through the trees. In America someone who sits around and does that is at the bottom of the ladder, but in Japan, say, someone who goes up into the mountains is accorded great respect. I guess I am somewhere in between. I enjoy reclusion: it clears my mind.

Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions.