“I knew the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer.”

“But I knew that someday I was going to die. And just before I died two things would happen; Number 1: I would regret my entire life. Number 2: I would want to live my life over again.”

“Why did you start to write?I left at 15.. I started to write becase I was taken off a ship from Germany when I was 18. They said I wouldn't live for 6 months.I'd been given up for dead many times and I just didn't want to waste my life. I had what I now realize was a spiritual experience.I realized that I would die,and that just before I would die,two things would happen.number one, I would regret my entire life.and number two, I would want to live my life over again.and then I would die.and that terrified me.[...]to think that I would live my entire life, look at it, and say oh..I blew it. was such a terrifying thoughtthat I bought a typewriterI didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I bought a typewriter.but that is what got me to start writing, wasI did not want to waste my lifeI wanted to, and I HAD to, do something with my life”

“I was sitting at home and had a profound experience. I experienced, in all of my Being, that someday I was going to die, and it wouldn't be like it had been happening, almost dying but somehow staying alive, but I would just die! And two things would happen right before I died: I would regret my entire life; I would want to live it over again. This terrified me. The thought that I would live my entire life, look at it and realize I blew it forced me to do something with my life.”

“I need more than the streets. I don’t want to be a floating crap game all my life. I want to be something . . . anything.”

“... I started to die 36 hours before I was born, so dying was a way of life for me.”

“I think the function of suffering is to let me know that my perception is skewed; what I’m doing is judging natural events in such a way that I am creating suffering within myself. For instance, you have pain over certain conditions, certain situations that occur. And if you just say ‘ok, here I am, I’m going to experience the pain,’ you don’t suffer. The resistance and the degree of the resistance to the natural phenomenon of life causes tremendous suffering.”