"‘Why?’ ‘Because I said so.’ First sign of a dumb rule."

"I’m compulsive, but I am also very indecisive. I don’t know what I want but I know that I want it now."

"Man’s mind is not a container to be filled but rather a fire to be kindled."

"Smoking is unhealthy, unhygienic, but not a sin. It becomes a sin only if you are doing it unconsciously — it is not smoking that makes it a sin but unconsciousness. Let me emphasize the fact. You can do your prayer every day unconsciously; then your prayer is a sin. You can become addicted to your prayer. If you miss the prayer one day, the whole day you will feel something is wrong, something is missing, some gap. It is the same with smoking or with drinking; there is no difference in it. Your prayer has become a mechanical habit; it has become a master over you. It bosses you; you are just a servant, a slave to it. If you don’t do it, it forces you to do it."

"A few times in my life I’ve had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be."