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"Don’t go near the cliff and contemplate jumping off. Don’t read a book about jumping off. Don’t study the art and science of jumping off. Don’t join a support group for jumping off. Don’t write poems about jumping off. Don’t kiss the ass of someone else who jumped off."

"There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths." "As tempting as it may be for me to believe that I can wake people up by slapping them. You can't wake someone up by slapping them."

"It’s all about unlocking the next door,” I continue, “and having ten thousand keys doesn’t mean a thing if none of them opens the door you’re standing in front of."

"Maybe the whole reason you’re on this spiritual track in the first place is due to the unchallenged belief that this path leads to rapture. Maybe you don’t really want to go where this really leads. Maybe you’re just in it for the fairy tale"

"Ironically, he is imprisoned by his own views of Freedom. All his knowledge and his urgent desire to express it and to have it validated stems directly from his ego’s need for reassurance that he is far ahead of the curve, which stems from his Fear that he is far behind it."

"His ego hangs from his neck like an anvil. He thinks he’s going to think his way out of his chains**, as if they were mere thoughts that contained him. He is tossing around Maharishi and Plato as if they were his allies rather than his jailers."

"The students ask for a fish, I hand them a worm. They may not be thrilled with a worm, but that’s the only way it’s going to work."

"Krishna, however, is not a god of love and light; he represents the whole thing, so in him all qualities must be found. so if you leave child molester or genocidal maniac or puppy kicker out of him due to your own delicate sensibilities, then you’ve redefined him."

"All thought is immoral. Its very essence is destruction. If you think of anything, you kill it. Nothing survives being thought of."

"You’re talking about vehicles and destinations. Once one has arrived at the destination, the vehicle is discarded, forgotten. If I take a train to Chicago I get off the train and enjoy Chicago. don’t drag the train around behind me."

"They’re just exploring the ego—making a study of the false self—which is a lifequest as valid as any other. But you don’t wake up by perfecting your dream character"

"That’s why depression can be perfectly rational response to a highly irrational situation—namely, life—especially when the depression revolves around futility or insignificance. After all, you can’t be much more futile or insignificant than a character in a dream"

"Church membership. Education, politics, hobbies, beliefs, opinions. These are all the things that require your energy. If you stop putting your energy into cleaning the house, then you can no longer define yourself as a good housekeeper.”

"We’re all afloat in a boundless sea, and the way we cope is by massing together in groups and pretending in unison that the situation is other than it is. That’s what a society really is, a little band of humanity huddled together against the specter of a pitch black sea."

"Lao Tzu said that what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the rest of the world calls a butterfly." "Wake up and smell the coffin. The building has always been on fire, you were just repressing that knowledge until now. There is no exit."

“And you’re completely alone in all this. There’s no rescue. Your office is engulfed in flames and there’s no one here to save you. Not Jesus or Buddha or the Pope or your mama. This is your dissatisfaction. This is your problem. This is your agony.”

"When you become so dissatisfied with your office that the hundred story plummet and the sidewalk seem like the better option, so dissatisfied that you actually hurl yourself out the window, then you know the level of dissatisfaction necessary to awaken from delusion."

"Ego clings to a teacher like a drowning man clings to a log. The teacher is beloved the way the log is beloved. The teaching is sacred the way the log is sacred. The log is the savior, saving us from sinking into the cold black depths."