I want to find a way of speaking to fellow human beings that will be cool rather than heated, philosophical rather than polemical, that will bring enlightenment rather than seeking to divide us into the righteous and the sinners, the saved and the damned, the sheep and the goats.

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We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.

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Poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response.

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A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.

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He continues to teach because it provides him with a livelihood; also because it teaches him humility, brings it home to him who he is in the world. The irony does not escape him: that the one who comes to teach learns the keenest of lessons, while those who come to learn learn nothing.

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When all else fails, philosophize.

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I’m going to end up in a hole in the ground... And so are you. So are we all.

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If we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.

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Pain is truth; all else is subject to doubt.

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I am not the we of anyone.

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