“The child can find out what the object ..might be only by finding ..obstacles to its access”

It is as if to say: if these are not valued – if these forms of wanting and feeling and speaking and doing – are not cultivated and encouraged and rewarded in the child, then the child will be mad.

People change, but there really are limits.

To grow up is to discover what one is unequal to.

You write to find out what you believe.

We are children for a very long time.

The vocabulary of one’s self-criticism is so impoverished and clichéd.

we are continually under threat from what we are unwilling and/or unable to see.

When we define ourselves by what we can recognize, by what we can comprehend- rather than, say, by what we can describe

Transgression is a quest for solitude

There is always a ..belief that by destroying the thing that we love we destroy our needs

Excesses of appetite are self-cures for feelings of hopelessness. ..

The whole notion of sanity may be an attempt to medicalize morality – to speak of the good in the language of health: to make us more accurate, more scientific in our wanting – but by the same token it becomes a form of moral blackmail.

Tragic heroes are failed pragmatists. Their ends are unrealistic and their means are impractical.

Wanting to be understood, as adults, can be our most violent form of nostalgia.

Believing in religion is like believing that adulthood is the solution to childhood.

We are at our most stupid in our self-hatred.

From a very early age, of having access to toys which structure his mind, which constitute a sure advantage over the little African child who has never even held a modern toy.

You are all searching for the silence of the mountain. But you’re looking for something outside. This silence is accessible to you right now, inside the center of your own being.

Comedy can reach many more people than, say, a serious lecture on the topic. And comedy might just be the access point to reach people who want to be entertained and also learn something.

In a democracy you cannot stop public access to that art that will most misinform the people. You cannot stop people from being misinformed. But what you can do is to educate the people to the point that they will throw the rascals out.

A tree full of ripened fruits bows down naturally, because of the weight of the fruits and its willingness to make its fruits accessible to others.

I write of youth, of love, and have access by these to sing of cleanly wantonness.

You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are; but you must approach each man by the right door.

What we desire is not to possess a woman, but to be the only one to possess her.