“A wise man once said that we can't make anyone feel or do anything. We can throw things into the wind, but it's up to each person to decide how they want to react, where they want to stand when things fall.”

“How can a man marry wisely in his twenties? The girl he's going to wind up wanting hasn't even been born.”

“Wise people are in want of nothing, and yet need many things. On the other hand, nothing is needed by fools, for they do not understand how to use anything, but are in want of everything.”

“.

In the end, we both want the right thing to happen, the right person to win, the right idea to prevail. We have no faith that it will, but still we want it. Neither of us has given up on anything.”

“Chosen responsibility is where the human race needs to be headed. And to do this, we choose what we want to become responsible for because it would make us feel good to do it, not because it would make us feel like a good person to do what we don't want to do.”

“If you confine it, you're confining a whole thing. If you make it spontaneous, so that anything can happen, like we don't want to confine or restrict anything. What we can do, whatever we can let happen, you just let it happen…. we're taking sex, which is probably another half of American entertainment, sex and violence, and we're projecting it, and we're saying this is the way everything is right now. Biologically, everyone is male and female, so many male genes and so many female. And so what it is is we're saying "OK, what's the big deal. Why is everybody so up tight about sex?" About faggots, queers, things like that. That's the way they are…. People don't accept that they are both male and female, and people are afraid to break out of their sex thing because that's a big insecurity that's doing that. Consequently, people will make fun of us. We don't mind that, that's making them accept more, making fun that we accept that. The thing is this is the way we are. We think it's a gas…. We like reactions — a reaction is walking out on us, a reaction is throwing tomatoes at the stage, that's a healthy psychological reaction. Reaction's applauding, passing out or throwing up, and all of that is a reaction, and as much of that we can get, the better. I don't care how they react, as long as they react.”

“How little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it.”

“I don't want to do any of those things you said. I want – I want – to make things right.'
'Then so you shall.'
'Is it so easy?'
'Not easy. Not easy at all. Think how much is wanting to make things wrong. All the fear in the world, and the violence that comes from the fear, and the hatred that comes from the violence, and the loneliness that comes from the hatred. All the unhappiness, all the cruelty, it gathers like clouds in the air, and grows dark and cold and heavy, and falls like grey snow in thick layers over the land. Then the world is all muffled and numb, and no one can hear each other or feel each other. Think how sad and lonely that must be.”

“We make choices, decisions, as long as we keep to the surface of things; once we reach the depths, we can neither choose nor decide, we can do nothing but regret the surface…”

“It is no surprise to me that hardly anyone tells the truth about how they feel. The smart ones keep themselves to themselves for good reason. Why would you want to tell anyone anything that's dear to you? Even when you like them and want nothing more than to be closer than close to them? It's so painful to be next to someone you feel strongly about and know you can't say the things you want to.”