John

“For me, Shambhala, you see, turned out to be not a goal but an absence. Not the discovery of a place but the act of leaving the futureless place where I was. And in the process I arrived at Constantinople.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day

“When you bow, you should just bow; when you sit, you should just sit; when you eat, you should just eat.”
― Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

“I just took [my cancer diagnosis] as bad luck, basically. It did strike me almost immediately, my atheist sort of thing kicked in and I thought "ha, if I was a God-botherer, I'd be thinking, why me God? What have I done to deserve this?" and I thought at least I'm free of that, at least I can simply treat it as bad luck and get on with it.”
― Iain M. Banks

“There is no subjection so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract