Policywank

“Levity is a universal constant. Comedy is one of the basic forces of the Universe. Mankind latches onto comedy, because levity is the expanding principle that keeps the whole bubble inflating.”
― Eric Idle, The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel

“As long as this “brokenness” of existence continues, there is no way out of the inner contradictions that it imposes upon us. If a man has a broken leg and continues to try to walk on it, he cannot help suffering. If desire itself is a kind of fracture, every movement of desire inevitably results in pain. But even the desire to end the pain of desire is a movement, and therefore causes pain. The desire to remain immobile is a movement. The desire to escape is a movement. The desire for Nirvana is a movement. The desire for extinction is a movement. Yet there is no way for us to be still by “imposing stillness” on the desires. In a word, desire cannot stop itself from desiring, and it must continue to move and hence to cause pain even when it seeks liberation from itself and desires its own extinction.”
― Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite

“Westerners may wonder, “Who are these gods?” If we were to adapt this to our cultural context, the verse might be, “Homage to you adored by Jesus, Mary, Moses, Abraham, Mohammed, Zeus, Socrates, Plato, Rambo, Madonna, Freud, Dr. Laura, Clinton, Bush, and everyone in Star Wars.”
― Thubten Chodron, How to Free Your Mind: The Practice of Tara the Liberator

“Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they spoke among themselves. In the light of this reflection, the library seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was then the place of a long, centuries-old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by a human mind, a treasure of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors.”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose