“a lesson must be lived
in order to be learned
and the clarity to see and stop this now
that is what i've earned”

The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927)

“They do.”
Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 9, "Orm Embar" (Ged and Arren)

As quoted by Nadezhda Popova, Reza Pahalavi, Son Of The Last Shah Of Iran: “No War Is Needed – We Will Topple This Regime Ourselves” http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=22&page=6, Izvetsiya, May 29, 2006.
Interviews, 2006

"Introduction," p. xxii
The Madwoman's Underclothes (1986)
Context: While young fools of my generation produced terrifying symptoms by ingesting poisons of various synthetic kinds, I was taken to extraordinary realms by a bacillus carried from human excrement by a fly's foot. I swelled to the size of a mountain and shrank to the size of a pin, flew and sang and fell through exotic configurations, in the intervals between agonizing convulsions on the heavy earthenware vaso, whose lethal contents I had to dispose of in the fields when the fever subsided. When the burning and shivering stopped and I could see again only what was there, I stayed enthralled by clarity. There was nothing to me in biochemical mindbending or bullshit psychedelia that did not have the slimy scent of death about it. I hated being out of touch, isolated by the solipsism of delirium, unable to communicate or comprehend.

Cinema.com interview (2001)
Context: The most important lesson I've learned in this business is how to say no. I have said no to a lot of temptations, and I am glad I did.

1880s, 1880, Letter to Theo (Cuesmes, July 1880)

"Prayer For The Dying"
Seal (1994)
Context: Crossing that bridge,
With lessons I've learned.
Playing with fire,
And not getting burned.
I may not know what you're going through.
But time is the space,
Between me and you.
Life carries on... it goes on.