“No matter where you're from or what you've done, you're never stuck in a particular circumstance, relationship, or cycle unless you say you are.”

“It doesn't matter what you did or where you were, it matters where you are and what you're doing.”

“Once you're in the racket, you're always in it. The parasites will trail you, begging for money and favors, and you can never get away from them no matter where you go.”

“No matter who you are or where you're from somewhere down the road you're gonna need someone.”

“If you still think you're a young pup then you are, no matter what the calendar says”

“Gathering is peculiar, because you see nothing but what you're looking for. If you're picking raspberries, you see only what's red, and if you're looking for bones you see only the white. No matter where you go, the only thing you see is bones.”

“That's the funny thing about religion: it doesn't matter what you say, you're going to upset.”

“No matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter where you've come from, you can always change, become a better version of yourself.”

“It's the invention of: work. What do people do that animals don't? Work. What does work mean: It means you sacrifice the present for the future. Why do you do that? Because you know that you're vulnerable, and because you're awake. From here on in, from this point forward, there's no return to unconscious paradise. I don't care how many problems you've solved so that today's okay. You have a lot of problems coming up. No matter how much you work, you're never going to work enough to solve all the problems. All you're going to do from here on in is be terrified of the future. That's the price of waking up. It's the end of paradise, and that's the beginning of history.”

“We have to take care of the cure. That will make the problem worse, no matter what. No matter what. We know what has to be done. We know you have to — you're tired of hearing the phrase, you got to flatten that curve where it's going up like this, people getting it, and then it comes down.”