“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

“And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God's name is Abraxas.”

“If you buy an egg thinking it's a goose's egg, and when it hatches it is actually a bird of paradise; no manner of convincing and reproach will turn the bird of paradise into a goose. Even if you make it go to goose church and goose school and eat goose feeds and only hang out with geese! In the end, it will still belong to paradise.”

“The sleeper dreams of an egg and knows an egg. He dreams the egg is hatched and a bird rises from the shell. Awake, he sees an egg and knows a star, and the star will shine. But how shall we wake the sleeper from his dreaming? How shall we enter his chamber and wake him to power? We can show him the door, but how shall we give him the key?”

“Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.”