The rule of survival, he thought. Keep eye peeled regarding situation around you. Learn its demands. And — meet them. Be there at the right time doing the right thing.
The Public School, he had long ago decided, was neurotic. It wanted a world in which nothing new came about, in which there were no surprises. And that was the world of the compulsive-obsessive neurotic; it was not a healthy world at all.
The problem with introspection is that it has no end.
THE ONLY REAL FAILURE IS TO FAIL OTHERS.
The most dangerous kind of person is one who is afraid of his own shadow.
The Moment changes. One must be ready to change with it. Or otherwise left high and dry. Adapt.
The mentally disturbed do not employ the Principle of Scientific Parsimony: the most simple theory to explain a given set of facts. They shoot for the baroque.
The human being has an unfortunate tendency to wish to please.
The first thing to depart in mental illness is the familiar. And what takes its place is bad news because not only can you not understand it, you also cannot communicate it to other people. The madman experiences something, but what it is or where it comes from he does not know.
The drive of unliving things is stronger than the drive of living things.
The distinction between sanity and insanity is narrower than the razor’s edge, sharper than a hound’s tooth, more agile than a mule deer. It is more elusive than the merest phantom. Perhaps it does not even exist; perhaps it is a phantom.
That is artist’s job: takes mineral rock from dark silent earth transforms it into shining light-reflecting form from sky.
