“There is a theory that watching unbearable stories about other people lost in grief and rage is good for you—may cleanse you of your darkness. Do you want to go down to the pits of yourself all alone? Not much. What if an actor could do it for you? Isn’t that why they are called actors? They act for you. You sacrifice them to action. And this sacrifice is a mode of deepest intimacy of you with your own life. Within it you watch [yourself] act out the present or possible organization of your nature. You can be aware of your own awareness of this nature as you never are at the moment of experience. The actor, by reiterating you, sacrifices a moment of his own life in order to give you a story of yours.”

“If you can see yourself as an artist, and you can see that your life is your own creation, then why not create the most beautiful story for yourself?”

“We have given you, O Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor endowment properly your own, in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same you may have and possess through your own judgement and decision. The nature of all other creatures is defined and restricted within laws which We have laid down; you, by contrast, impeded by no such restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody We have assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature [...]. We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine.”

“It's what you do to yourself when you go mad with rage. You have no idea how much you can hurt yourself with your own strength.”

“If you like to wonder about what you have done in life...know that wondering is about weighing the worth of your actions. To be able to do so would mean having the knowledge of that what constitutes action. Or even inaction. For somewhere in the realm of knowledge, you cease to be the actor or actress. Deeper within, you would realize that you never were for you could never be the actor or the actress! For you have done nothing since you can do nothing! But it is good to begin wondering in the first place. It already puts you ahead in the path of progress!”

“You must become the producer, director and actor in the unfolding story of your life.”