“Aging is no accident. It is necessary to the human condition, intended by the soul. We become more characteristic of who we are simply by lasting into later years; the older we become, the more our true natures emerge. Thus the final years have a very important purpose: the fulfillment and confirmation of one’s character.”

—James Hillman

“The only thing people regret is
that they didn’t live boldly enough,
that they didn’t invest enough heart,
didn’t love enough.
Nothing else really counts at all.”

~ Ted Hughes

The purpose of a writer
is to keep civilization
from destroying
itself.

― Albert Camus

"We have to realize that we are as deeply afraid to live and to love as we are to die."

—R. D. Laing

Even though I write about the human race, the further away from them, the better I feel. Two miles is great; two thousand miles is beautiful.

—Charles Bukowski

I know that I have died before—
once in November, once in June.
How strange to choose June again,
so concrete with its green breasts and bellies . . .
New York City will not mind.
At night the bats will beat on the trees,
knowing it all,
seeing what they sensed all day.

--Anne Sexton

“Forests precede civilizations…deserts follow them.”

—François-René de Chateaubriand

Go out and do something.
It isn’t your room that’s
a prison, it’s yourself.

~ Sylvia Plath

“The flaw in rationalism is the belief that human beings can live by applying a theory. But theory – a term that comes from the Greek theorein, meaning ‘to look at’ – cannot replace practical knowledge of how to live.

Plato misled western philosophy when he represented knowing the good in terms of visual experience.

We can look at something without touching it; but the good life is not like that. We know it only by living it. If we think about it too much and turn it into a theory, it may dissolve and disappear.

Contrary to Socrates, an examined life may not be worth living.”

— John Gray

“There is much that a man should not see, should not know, and if he should see it, it is better for him to die.”

—Varlam Shalamov

"As a people we have become obsessed with Health. There is something fundamentally, radically unhealthy about all this. We do not seem to be seeking more exuberance in living as much as staving off failure, putting off dying. We have lost all confidence in the human body."

~ Lewis Thomas

The whole world
is a sack of shit
ripping open.
I can´t save
it.

—Charles Bukowski

“The real cause of alcoholism is the complete baffling sterility of existence as sold to you.”

— Malcolm Lowry

“Green was the silence, wet was the light,
the month of June trembled like a butterfly.”

― Pablo Neruda

“A slave is one who waits
for someone to come
and free him.”

― Ezra Pound

"Exceptional men do not hold their experiences to be out of the ordinary or of interest to anyone else. Unlike the trodden fungus-men, they are not so ignorantly and presumptuously self-absorbed.

They are nobody and they know it. They shun notice. They are exceedingly rare."

-- Nick Tosches

“Most of the young men of talent whom I have met in this country give one the impression of being somewhat demented. Why shouldn't they? They are living amidst spiritual gorillas, living with food and drink maniacs, success-mongers, gadget innovators, publicity hounds.

God, if I were a young man today, if I were faced with a world such as we have created, I would blow my brains out.”

― Henry Miller

“Narcissism appears realistically to represent the best way of coping with the tensions and anxieties of modern life, and the prevailing social conditions therefore tend to bring out narcissistic traits that are present, in varying degrees, in everyone. These conditions have also transformed the family, which in turn shapes the underlying structure of personality. A society that fears it has no future is not likely to give much attention to the needs of the next generation…”

— Christopher Lasch

"Before civilization, disease was generally nonexistent. How could it have been otherwise? Where else do degenerative and infectious diseases, emotional maladies, and all the rest issue if not from work, toxicity, cities, estrangement, fear, unfilled lives--the whole canvas of damaged, alienated reality?"

--John Zerzan

“The self with which humans identify is a construction of society and memory. Forming an image of themselves in infancy and childhood, they seek happiness by preserving and strengthening that self-image. But the image they have of themselves is not the reality of their bodies or their lives, and chasing after it can lead not to fulfilment but to self-frustration.”

— John Gray