You know you’re in the city and all is well when, in a round table discussion of
a certain movie for instance, much of the time is taken up by the participants’ criticism of previous reviewers' comments about the film.
To survive: an imaginary snake must continually put-on-weight.
 

A chap who writes books on matters so-called, metaphysical,
states that lack of large sales and widespread popularity is always proof that
a particular author’s ideas are too advanced and illuminating for his times,
and someone said: “I take it yours aren’t selling well.”
The incomparable feature of the city is that there:
anything that happens can be explained to your advantage:
a feat doable only by life, words and human thought.
 

Every time he would try to say mass marketers, one guy’s mouth would say:
mass murderers, in response to which his mind would warn:
“Watch it Buster!  --  I know who you’re really referring to!”
 

Of great reward in life is correcting the misbraying of asses.
 

Attempting to decipher his degree of success thus far, offered one man:
“My problem is that I have a fifty dollar explanation for man’s two dollar questions.”
 

Stories are not history, and all history is stories.
 

Conversation.
“No one has any use for you if you’re not healthy.”
    “Physically, you mean?”
“Huh?”
 

To think what the herd thinks makes you worse than a cow.
(Only an outlier can comprehend this.)
 

Conversation II
“No one has any use for you if you’re not healthy.”
    “In the city, you mean?”
“What?”
 

To believe what the herd believes is an utter disgrace.
 

One man’s mind has no respect for anything less than a tsunami:
a full blown synapse-refreshing tsunami.
 

The good escapee constantly appears to be doing the generally expected.
   “Are we talking about a man and other people,
     or a certain part of a man’s mind and the rest of it?"
 

One guy decided that his mind had two conditions, either: swamped  --  OR: a swamp.
 

As the sounds of unrest grew outside the palace,
the long time dictator said to his personal guards:
“If the time ever comes, I trust you guys will make some effort to save my sorry ass,”  then suddenly everything was calm and quiet and it became clear that
this was all taking place inside a brain’s limbic system.
 

The good escapee constantly seems to be talking about generally expected stuff --
but  --  Great Googie Moogie!  --  if the truth were known!
 

The mayor of one city in his monthly pep talk concluded:
“And remember: If we do not learn from the past,
we will be able to continually repeat it and enjoy it over and over again indefinitely.”
 

Confab.
“All writers learn early on: If you run out of anything to say  --  get strident!”
    “Couldn’t talkers use that also?”
“Fine by me.”
 

Here verbatim is what the instructor had to say at the beginning of his course:
“Thinking the same thing more than once is not so bad,
if you thought it the first time under duress.
Everything men think is under duress.”
In city colleges the students and teachers appropriate to one another never fail to
find one another: that’s what man’s collective consciousness is all about.
(And to combat this is what drives some rebels to wear masks and name themselves after inflammable minerals).
 

Conversation among city intellectuals is a show-off trapeze act;
among the certain man’s own brain cells: the burning of  the trapeze.
 

A man who tried to give out every possible appearance of being an awakened master mentioned that all spiritually superior men are commonly the victim of verbal assault, and abuse and someone speculated: “I take it you’re being picked on.”
 

One spring day, over near the courthouse, a man announced:
“I’ve decided to  --  come clean!  --
                                 ‘fess up!  --
                                 make a clean breast of it!  --
                                 bring it all out into the open and generally let it all hang out!”
and the city broke in to say: “Not on my new carpet you won’t!”
(carpet symbolizing man’s latest version of his special verbal-only reality).
 

One guy has a line he eventually says to everyone:
“I hope this doesn’t come as a shock to you...” (and sometimes without the ellipsis):
“I hope this doesn’t come as a shock to you,”  the version used apparently being determined by some unstated clue given off by his intended audience.
   (And the tenor broke out
                             opened up
                             let go: “Duress  --  you is my woman-n-n…”)
 

The first man said that everything goes wrong; that life isn’t worth living,
and that he wished he was dead, and the second man replied that while such feelings are normal, a man must find a source of strength outside himself
so as to keep them from running and ruining his life.
(They plan to take this act on the road  --  as soon as the weather improves.)

   Apparently trying to act for a moment like he fit in (for a joke or something?!?)
   a rebel said in his head: “If the struggle to wake up was any more fun than it is  --
   I probably wouldn’t be worthy of it,” (and upon hearing this,
   his city seemed to give just the slightest smile  --  but it too could have just been pretending.)

      To be a solid member of life’s army, you need feel you deserve to be cashiered.
      “Oh dear! --  it’s probably only a matter of time before I’m found-out!  --
      (with death I assume, being the consequence)."
          "Oh lordy, Doctor Charlotte  --  I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout birthin’ no me.”

                Having nothing to defend: the man-who-knows has no need to hide.
                    “You mean no need to try to hide?!”
                Si  --  as in: Act real stupid.
                    “Pa pa: could that be another definition of: Being Enlightened (to wit):
                      Being completely out from under the covers?”
               “Good one lad, like: The nudist amongst ordinarily clothed consciousness.”
 
 

P.S. There is no such thing as confessional-writing that is enlightening.