“While we are asleep in this world, we are awake in another one.”

There is nothing in the world that is not mysterious, but the mystery is more evident in certain things than in others: in the sea, in the eyes of the elders, in the color yellow, and in music.

Democracy is an abuse of statistics.

We accept reality so readily – perhaps because we sense that nothing is real.

Truth never penetrates an unwilling mind.

The worst labyrinth is not that intricate form that can entrap us forever, but a single and precise straight line.

What will die with me when I die, what pathetic or fragile form will the world lose?

There’s no need to build a labyrinth when the entire universe is one.

Personally, I am a hedonistic reader; I have never read a book merely because it was ancient. I read books for the aesthetic emotions they offer me, and I ignore the commentaries and criticism.

In general, every country has the language it deserves.

I think most people are more important than their opinions.

The possibilities of the art of combination are not infinite, but they tend to be frightful.

We have stopped believing in progress. What progress that is !

The future is as irrevocable as an inflexible yesterday.

I would rather like to think of God as being a kind of adventurer – even as Wells thought about him – or perhaps as something within us making for some unknown purpose.

In all fiction, when a man is faced with alternatives he chooses one at the expense of others.

The heresies we should fear are those which can be confused with orthodoxy.

Long before the awakening of thought on earth, manifestations of cosmic energy must have been produced which have no parallel today.

That is a dream also; only he has remained asleep, while you have awakened; and who knows which of you is the most fortunate?

Politics is changing and as the demographics of different constituencies change so we need to be awake to the possibility of making gains where we have not traditionally done so.

The younger generation is vibrant with a new psychology; the new spirit is awake in the masses . . . Each generation . . . will have its creed.

O fools, awake! The rites ye sacred hold Are but a cheat contrived by men of old Who lusted after wealth and gained their lust And died in baseness-and their law is dust.

The American dream? We don’t have a dream in Britain because we’re bloody awake!

Married sex is like being awake during your own autopsy. It is root canal work without anesthetic.

I think I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy Gillespie and Bird. It was through their work that I began to learn about musical structures and the more theoretical aspects of music.