“The commitment to enlarged thought is morally and politically significant in that it fosters the ‘ability to think without rules’, to cultivate judgement and conscience capable of thinking through the purposes and consequences of our actions from different perspectives, without proceeding in automatic fashion through obedience to pre-existing social conventions.”

“No one goes around suggesting that everyone should become their own autonomous cheesemakers and cheering the death of the cheese industry. Why? Because that would result in a lot of shitty cheese.”

“Perhaps the greatest magic of the human spirit is the ability to laugh, at ourselves, at each other, and at our sometimes hopeless situation. Laughter normalized our lives”

“Safety is the most basic task of all. Without sense of safety, no growth can take place. Without safety, all energy goes to defense”

“To let others define us is to relinquish authority over our very existence.”

“Politics is when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than based on what they really think.”

“The people who hitched to Katmandu (and are doubtlessly still doing so, despite the usual reports of official prohibitions) seem to me to be of this sort, displaced persons, aimless couples without papers. They are ill-suited to play the role which they are conventionally given; that of proletarian playboys, outriders of a modern sub-culture, who intend, mainly through will-power, to end injustice and rule the world. For the most part they have chosen to be the sole inhabitants of private worlds, and their aspirations will not be found in the bazaars of the international youth movement, or of the global underground or any other such tentative organizations.”