“You build desires, and as a result, rather than just being who and what you are, you create one, ten, hundreds of false egos, which in turn create more desires until there’s no sense of self left anywhere in the jam-packed auditorium of schizophrenic nobodies.”

“Perhaps defining a self begins with simply making the first choice, simply rising up and deciding what you desire, and then methodically, like writing, putting one word after the other until you have created a whole self and a whole life in the process.”

“However, you cannot force smokers to stop, and although all smokers secretly want to, until they are ready to do so a pact just creates additional pressure, which increases their desire to smoke. This turns them into secret smokers, which further increases the feeling of dependency.”

“The curse which lies upon marriage is that too often the individuals are joined in their weakness rather than in their strength, each asking from the other instead of finding pleasure in giving. It is even more deceptive to dream of gaining through the child a plenitude, a warmth, a value, which one is unable to create for oneself; the child brings joy only to the woman who is capable of disinterestedly desiring the happiness of another, to one who without being wrapped up in self seeks to transcend her own existence.”

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”

“Surely your longings and feelings arise from the God who created you. They were created in order to be filled, not crushed. Surely we shall find peace not by eliminating desire, but by finding its fulfillment and satisfaction in the One who created it.”