“It's precisely their diseases that people pride themselves on, and I do-more perhaps than anybody else. Let's not argue; my objection was absurd. But that aside, I am firmly convinced that not only excess of consciousness, but any consciousness at all is a disease.”

“But yet I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, every sort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease.”

“I swear to you, sirs, that excessive consciousness is a disease--a genuine, absolute disease.”

“All forms of art are consciousness expanders, and I am convinced that they will take us further, and more consciously, than drugs.”

“If you take good care of any disease by eating well, sleeping well, being aware of your health, consciously wanting to be well, not smoking, et cetera, you are doing all the things you should be doing anyway, but somehow having a disease makes them easier to do. A human without a disease is like a ship without a rudder.”

“The diseased, anyway, are more interesting than the healthy. The words of the diseased, even those who can manage only a murmur, carry more weight than those of the healthy. Then, too, all healthy people will in the future know disease. That sense of time, ah, the diseased man’s sense of time, what treasure hidden in a desert cave. Then, too the diseased truly bite, whereas the healthy pretend to bite but really only snap at the air. Then, too, then, too, then, too.”