“I used my self, my body [in his art] as an instrument.... not only my body but also my spirit.... as an instrument to research something.”

The Diary Of Anais Nin, Volume Two (1934-1939)
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Context: The body is an instrument which only gives off music when it is used as a body. Always an orchestra, and just as music traverses walls, so sensuality traverses the body and reaches up to ecstasy.

After all, it’s more useful to know how to drive a car than it is to know what makes it go. Of course it’s important to know certain things about a machine, but I don’t need to be able to build my own synthesizer. It strikes me that the people who do build them don’t know how to play them, so l’d rather find out more about playing".
1984

Conversation with Thomas Jones (7 January 1946), quoted in Thomas Jones, A Diary with Letters. 1931-1950 (Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 540.
1940s

Source: 1930s, Adventures of Ideas (1933), p. 349.

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 165

An account of an experience of transcendent awareness, soon after a contest where, unarmed, he defeated a naval officer armed with a bokken (wooden sword) without harming him; as quoted in Aikido (1985) by Kisshomaru Ueshiba <!-- Hozansha Publications, Tokyo -->
Context: I felt the universe suddenly quake, and that a golden spirit sprang up from the ground, veiled my body, and changed my body into a golden one. At the same time my body became light. I was able to understand the whispering of the birds, and was clearly aware of the mind of God, the creator of the universe.
At that moment I was enlightened: the source of Budo is God's love — the spirit of loving protection for all beings … Budo is not the felling of an opponent by force; nor is it a tool to lead the world to destruction with arms. True Budo is to accept the spirit of the universe, keep the peace of the world, correctly produce, protect and cultivate all beings in nature.

Source: Path of Life (1909), p. 12

Source: The Essential Calvin and Hobbes