“If you could not accept the past and its burden there was no future, for without one there cannot be the other.”

“Reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past, and future, events.”

“History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future.”

“All items listed above belong in the worldIn which all things are continuous,And are parts of the original dream whichI am now trying to discover the logic of. ThisIs the process whereby pain of the past in its pastnessMay be converted into the future tenseOf joy.I Am Dreaming of a White Christmas: The Natural History of a Vision (1974)”

“There is nothing more alone than being in a car at night in the rain. I was in the car. And I was glad of it. Between one point on the map and another point on the map, there was the being alone in the car in the rain. They say you are not you except in terms of relation to other people. If there weren't any other people there wouldn't be any you because what you do which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people. That is a very comforting thought when you are in the car in the rain at night alone, for then you aren't you, and not being you or anything, you can really lie back and get some rest. It is a vacation from being you. There is only the flow of the motor under your foot spinning that frail thread of sound out of its metal guy like a spider, that filament, that nexus, which isn't really there, between the you which you have just left in one place and the you which you will be where you get to the other place.”

“Willie went out and buttonholed folks on the street and tried to explain things to them. You could see Willie standing on a street corner, sweating through his seersucker suit, with his hair down in his eyes, holding an old envelope in one hand and a pencil in the other, working out figures to explain what he was squawking about, but folks don't listen to you when your voice is low and patient and you stop them in the hot sun and make them do arithmetic.”

“They say you are not you except in terms of relation to other people. If there weren't any other people there wouldn't be any you because what you do which is what you are only has meaning in relation to other people. ”