Alan

“My brother. Our perpetual encore -
he riddles my father with red silk scarves before sawing him in half
with a steak knife. Now we have two fathers,
one who weeps anytime he hears the word Presto!
The other who drags his feet down the hall at night.
Neither has the stomach for steak anymore.”
― Natalie Díaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“Bhikkhus, the teaching is merely a vehicle to describe the truth. Don’t mistake it for the truth itself. A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The finger is needed to know where to look for the moon, but if you mistake the finger for the moon itself, you will never know the real moon. The teaching is like a raft that carries you to the other shore. The raft is needed, but the raft is not the other shore. An intelligent person would not carry the raft around on his head after making it across to the other shore. Bhikkhus, my teaching is the raft which can help you cross to the other shore beyond birth and death. Use the raft to cross to the other shore, but don’t hang onto it as your property. Do not
become caught in the teaching. You must be able to let it go.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Old Path White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha

“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”
― Rutger Hauer, All Those Moments: Stories of Heroes, Villains, Replicants, and Blade Runners

“The intellectual is called on the carpet... Don't you conceal something? You talk a language which is suspect. You don't talk like the rest of us, like the man in the street, but rather like a foreigner who does not belong here. We have to cut you down to size, expose your tricks, purge you.”
― Herbert Marcuse