Real freedom is the ability to pause between stimulus and response, and in that pause, choose.

One of the few blessings of living in an age of anxiety is that we are forced to become aware of ourselves.

Creativity is neither the product of neurosis nor simple talent, but an intense courageous encounter with the Gods.

The mature person becomes able to differentiate feelings into as many nuances, strong and passionate experiences, or delicate and sensitive ones, as in the different passages of music in a symphony. Unfortunately, many of us have feelings limited like notes in a bugle call.

A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence. Whether the meaning of existence is only what we put into life by our own individual fortitude, as Sartre would hold, or whether there is a meaning we need to discover, as Kierkegaard would state, the result is the same: myths are our way of finding this meaning and significance.

There can be no stronger proof of the impoverishment of our contemporary culture than the popular - though profoundly mistaken - definition of myth as falsehood.

What Kierkegaard said about love is also true of creativity: every person must start at the beginning.