Want any of this stuff? Jordan?... Nick?" I didn't answer. Nick?" he asked again. What?" Want any?" No... I just remembered that today's my birthday." I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade.
Ask courageous questions.
Do not be satisfied with superficial answers.
Be open to wonder and at the same time subject all claims to knowledge, without exception, to intense skeptical scrutiny.
Be aware of human fallibility.
Cherish your species and your planet.
I can teach anybody how to get, what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want. Once you are crystal clear about the intended end result that you seek to produce, all the ways that it can become a done deal start to reveal themselves to you. There are many who have accomplished exactly what you want to achieve and could show you the way. You are not ready to ask them because you are not clear and you have not determined which questions need answers.
I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn't yet.
If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words,' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.'
Why couldn't the world that concerns us- be a fiction? And if somebody asked, 'but to be a fiction there surely belongs an author?'- couldn't one answer simply: 'Why? Doesn't this "belongs" perhaps belong to the fiction, too?'
To-morrow! the mysterious, unknown guest,
Who cries to me: "Remember Barmecide,
And tremble to be happy with the rest."
And I make answer: "I am satisfied;
I dare not ask; I know not what is best;
God hath already said what shall betide.
We must certainly acknowledge that solitude is a fine thing; but it is a pleasure to have some one who can answer, and to whom we can say, from time to time, that solitude is a fine thing.