💬 Quotes

"The 'true world' and the 'Apparent world'—in plain terms: the mendacious world and the reality."

"A strong and well-turned-out human being digests his experiences... he is not easily poisoned."

"The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself."

"Muzak's objective is to reduce thinking, to discourage and prevent the quick formation of habits that lead to awareness and to negate whatever is culturally or intellectually disturbing."

"If you're going to repair a motorcycle, an adequate technique is indispensable, but more than that is required if the work is to be good. It is an attitude, as much as anything else."

"The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test."

"Quality... you know what it is, yet you don't know what it is. But that's self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality."

"To uncreate, to pull down, to make unnecessary and to replace with something remembered instead of something present, this is the job of a gumption trap."

"A man should work as hard as he can; whether he would earn much or little, let him write as much as he can, and do his best to make his work worth the money."

"The man who has been master of his own time, and able to do what he pleased when he pleased, might have been idle; but I had been driven to work at stated hours."

"All those I think who have lived as literary men in this country have with singular unanimity agreed in declaring that authorship should not be used as a profession by which to live."

"It was my practice to be at my desk before eight in the morning, and to have finished my daily task before the postman knocked."

"My boyhood was, I think, as unhappy as that of any young gentleman could possibly have been."

"Biography is useless unless it be true; and it is difficult to tell the whole truth concerning a man, let alone concerning oneself."

"You only get one life. It's actually your duty to run it as fully, as brilliantly as possible."

"Some mistakes... just have greater consequences than others. But you don't have to let the result of one mistake be the thing that defines you."

"I will never, ever regret the things I've done. Because most days, all you have are places in your memory that you can go to."

"You are embedded in my heart, Clark. You were from the first day you walked in, with your ridiculous clothes and your bad jokes and your complete inability to ever hide what you felt."

"Push yourself. Don't settle. Just live well. Just live."

"I had realized that I didn't want to be the person who shrank from things anymore. I wanted to be the person who pushed through."