“The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.”

You’re lucky. I’m always conscious of myself —in my mind. Painfully conscious.

A madman’s ravings are absurd in relation to the situation in which he finds himself, but not in relation to his madness.

It is disgusting – Why must we have bodies?

Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.

Hell is – other people!

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

A man is involved in life, leaves his impress on it, and outside of that there is nothing.

We are our choices.

Better a good journalist than a poor assassin.

I never could bear the idea of anyone’s expecting something from me. It always made me want to do the opposite.

I am going to outlive myself. Eat, sleep, sleep, eat. Exist slowly, softly, like these trees, like a puddle of water, like the red bench in the streetcar.

I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.

There is no human nature, since there is no god to conceive it.

As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.

The consciousness that says ‘I am’ is not the consciousness that thinks.

He is always becoming, and if it were not for the contingency of death, he would never end.

I could be going through something in my life that I might not want to talk about in my music because my music is the way that I escape some of those things.

My motivational music is any music that helps me escape. There are certain records that take you to euphoria, when you’re partying and havin’ a good time, dancin’ with a couple people.

Why do we hold onto negativity? For some reason, we believe that others are affected by our experience of remaining upset, hurt or angry. Holding on to pain, anger, guilt or shame is the glue that binds us to the situation we want to escape.

A man says to me, ‘Can you explain the seven trumpets of the Revelation?’ No, but I can blow one in your ear, and warn you to escape from the wrath to come.

Worries carry responsibilities that belong to God, not to you. Worry does not enable us to escape evil; it makes us unfit to cope with it when it comes.

Only mediocrity escapes criticism.

Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.

My concept of successful living is escaping the matrix.