“That's kind of what trust is, isn't it? A willful self-delusion.”

Source: The Neverending Story

Talks at Google (Oct 28, 2014)

Source: Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862), Volume I, p. 143; quoted in Criminal Minds, "The Crossing" [episode 3.18].

Source: Paths to Otherwhere (1996), Ch. 18
Context: What the Buddhists teach is to free yourself from the three great evils in life: greed — which means all kinds of craving — hatred, and delusion. But delusion is really the cause of the other two. We crave that which we delude ourselves into thinking will bring happiness; we hate those whom we delude ourselves into thinking stand to stop us from getting it.

Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Believe in Me.
Song lyrics, Windows and Walls (1984)

Nobel Address (1991)
Context: I began my book about perestroika and the new thinking with the following words: "We want to be understood". After a while I felt that it was already happening. But now I would like once again to repeat those words here, from this world rostrum. Because to understand us really — to understand so as to believe us — proved to be not at all easy, owing to the immensity of the changes under way in our country. Their magnitude and character are such as to require in-depth analysis. Applying conventional wisdom to perestroika is unproductive. It is also futile and dangerous to set conditions, to say: We'll understand and believe you, as soon as you, the Soviet Union, come completely to resemble "us", the West.
No one is in a position to describe in detail what perestroika will finally produce. But it would certainly be a self-delusion to expect that perestroika will produce "a copy" of anything.

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 76, “The Taglian Territories: Another Origin Story” (p. 609)