Down Quotes

I like to think of myself at home in the armchair, writing, smoking and occasionally wandering down the shop.

An it isn’t so much that the church is in bondage to Big Business and doctrines as laid down by millionaires – though a lot of churches are that, too.

Not thinking about anything is zen. Once you know this, walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is zen. To know that the mind is empty is to see the buddha…. Using the mind to reality is delusion. Not using the mind to look for reality is awareness. Freeing oneself from words is liberation.

When the gap between ideal and real becomes too wide, the system breaks down.

You can’t destroy America by destroying our elite. Think about America’s elite. Think about it down through history. Destroy our elite, and about half the time, you’re doing us a favor.

At various points, in big ways and small, we get knocked down. If we stay down, grit loses. If we get up, grit prevails.

And the thing that I always tried to do with important singers when I met them was to sit down and record everything they knew, give them a first real run-through of their art.

I shall be glad to lie down with my fathers in honor. It is human at least, if not divine.

Deep down, no one really believes they have a right to live. But this death sentence generally stays tucked away, hidden beneath the difficulty of living. If that difficulty is removed from time to time, death is suddenly there, unintelligibly.

When I get back into the city, it doesn’t matter where you plop me down, I have my friends around me and I feel so blessed.