“Illness reduces man to his basic state: a cloaca in which the chemical processes continue. The meaningless hegemony of the involuntary.”

“Infinite is a meaningless word: except – it states / The mind is capable of performing / an endless process of addition.”

“And so, in the space of a few yards, the sacred springs of Gafsa, those laughing, chattering, amorous waters of the Romans that well up here in a river of warmth and purity, had been reduced to those of a Cloaca Maxima.”

“Each of us needs periods in which our minds can focus inwardly. Solitude is an essential experience for the mind to organize its own processes and create an internal state of resonance. In such a state, the self is able to alter its constraints by directly reducing the input from interactions with others. (p. 235)”

“I’m blushing at my own stupid, nonsensical, meaningless thought process, which, by the way, nobody knows about except me.”

“As clouds race towards their own release from form, they are replenshied by the mutable process which created them. They drift, not into continuity, but into other, temporary states of being, all of which eventually decompose to melt into the surrounding air. They rise and fall like vaporous civilizations....”