“The bilateral illusion of unilateral attention was almost infantilely gratifying from an emotional standpoint: you got to believe you were receiving somebody's complete attention without having to return it. Regarded with the objectivity of hindsight, the illusion appears arational, almost literally fantastic: it would be like being able to both lie and to trust other people at the same time.”

“The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of. Our attention would have been on God.”

“But I cannot forget that, at other times I have been deceived in sleep by similar illusions; and, attentively considering those cases, I perceive so clearly that there exist no certain marks by which the state of waking can ever be distinguished from sleep, that I feel greatly astonished; and in amazement I almost persuade myself that I am now dreaming.”

“It was because all we wanted was each other's constant love and attention and for no one else to receive that love and attention, which is a selfish and difficult place to be in a relationship. We were emotionally retarded, and that was the best we could do at the time.”

“Many of you have already found out, and others will find out in the course of their lives, that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate our attention totally on it's pursuit. But even while it eludes us, the illusion of knowing it still lingers and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth seldom is pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter.”

“You can’t receive self-assurance or esteem, it’s something you just give yourself. Nothing in the world can complete you, other than yourself. Loneliness is an illusion, people try to search for themselves in other people or objects and it’s pointless. If you are with yourself, you are never lonely, if you hide from yourself you will always be lonely no matter how many people you try to cover that up with. Loneliness is a state of mind, not a situation that the world throws at you.”