8,685 books
—
25,330 voters
Samantha
https://www.goodreads.com/bumblingfoo
“Oh, the laws of physics and of logic…the number system…the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real.”
― Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
― Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
“The material object of observation, the bicycle or rotisserie, can’t be right or wrong. Molecules are molecules. They don’t have any ethical codes to follow except those people give them. The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn’t any other test. If the machine produces tranquillity it’s right. If it disturbs you it’s wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed. The test of the machine’s always your own mind. There isn’t any other test.”
― Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
― Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
“This, then, is the human problem: there is a price to be paid for every increase in consciousness. We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain. By remembering the past we can plan for the future. But the ability to plan for the future is offset by the "ability" to dread pain and to fear of the unknown. Furthermore, the growth of an acute sense of the past and future gives us a corresponding dim sense of the present. In other words, we seem to reach a point where the advantages of being conscious are outweighed by its disadvantages, where extreme sensitivity makes us unadaptable.”
― The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
― The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
“Quality ... you know what it is, yet you don't know what it is. But that's self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There's nothing to talk about. But if you can't say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn't exist at all. But for all practical purposes it really does exist. What else are the grades based on? Why else would people pay fortunes for some things and throw others in the trash pile? Obviously some things are better than others ... but what's the betterness? ... So round and round you go, spinning mental wheels and nowhere finding anyplace to get traction. What the hell is Quality? What is it?”
― Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
― Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“The truths Phaedrus began to pursue were lateral truths; no longer the frontal truths of science, those toward which the discipline pointed, but the kind of truth you see laterally, out of the corner of your eye. In a laboratory situation, when your whole procedure goes haywire, when everything goes wrong or is indeterminate or is so screwed up by unexpected results you can't make head or tail out of anything, you start looking laterally. That's a word he later used to describe a growth of knowledge that doesn't move forward like an arrow in flight, but expands sideways, like an arrow enlarging in flight, or like the archer, discovering that although he has hit the bull's-eye and won the prize, his head is on a pillow and the sun is coming in the window. Lateral knowledge is knowledge that's from a wholly unexpected direction, from a direction that's not even understood as a direction until the knowledge forces itself upon one. Lateral truths point to the falseness of axioms and postulates underlying one's existing system of getting at truth.”
― Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
― Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
— 42504 members
— last activity 1 hour, 44 min ago
Hi there! SFFBC is a welcoming place for readers to share their love of speculative fiction through group reads, buddy reads, challenges, ...more
Samantha’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Samantha’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Samantha hasn't connected with her friends on Goodreads, yet.
Favorite Genres
Adult Fiction, Book Club, Ebooks, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Paranormal, Philosophy, Politics, Science, Science fiction, Suspense, Thriller, and War
Polls voted on by Samantha
Lists liked by Samantha
















