Ann Shulgin > Quotes

“I returned to stalking the wild universe.
Final question, if you please. How do I stop being afraid?
"Know that there is no safety anywhere. There never was and there never will be. Stop looking for it. Live with a fierce intent to waste nothing of yourself and life."
There was one final message.
"Turn fear around. Its other face is excitement.”
― Ann Shulgin, Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story

“On New Year's Eve, when the children had gone up the hill to be with their father, I went to a Mensa party in San Francisco, but returned home relatively early, wanting to face the first few hours of the new year away from the noise and lurching of people who had drunk too much. I stood outside on the deck, in darkness, looking up at the star-frosted sky, letting myself feel without censoring the ache and hope that belonged to that night, and I sent out prayer for connection with someone who would be --finally -- the person I'd needed to be with all my life, someone who would have gone through his own changes and wars of the spirit and emerged a true adult. A grown-up man. Who wouldn't mind my being a grandmother, for Pete's sake. A man somewhat like Shura Borodin -- or what Shura seemed to be.
I cried a bit because the wanting was so very intense and the clear night sky so very indifferent, and everything I was in body and soul might yet grow old without a lover and friend who could be to me what I was capable of being to him. I toasted myself, hope, the new year and the magnificent cold stars with a bit of wine, then went to bed.”
― Ann Shulgin, Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story

“I rose and walked toward the front door. There was only the slightest sense of physical weight, and every motion, every gesture of the body was graceful.

I walk in grace. I move in grace. I live in Grace.”
― Ann Shulgin, Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story

“I don't know if you realize this, but there are some researchers — doctors — who are giving this kind of drug to volunteers, to see what the effects are, and they're doing it the proper scientific way, in clean white hospital rooms, away from trees and flowers and the wind, and they're surprised at how many of the experiments turn sour. They've never taken any sort of psychedelic themselves, needless to say. Their volunteers — they're called 'subjects,' of course — are given mescaline or LSD and they're all opened up to their surroundings, very sensitive to color and light and other people's emotions, and what are they given to react to? Metal bed-frames and plaster walls, and an occasional white coat carrying a clipboard. Sterility.”
― Ann Shulgin, Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story

“I was just thinking that people who trust are usually trustworthy, and they tend to project that quality onto others.”
― Ann Shulgin, Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story

“Final question, if you please. How do I stop being afraid? "Know that there is no safety anywhere. There never was and there never will be. Stop looking for it. Live with a fierce intent to waste nothing of yourself or life."

There was one final message. "Turn fear around. Its other face is excitement.”
― Ann Shulgin, Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story

“Most people hold onto the familiar. Who wants to actually risk having his universe changed? I do. Me.”
― Ann Shulgin, Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story