*image by Ben Harubin

 

"Ringggg!"
"Hello."
"Are you lost?"
"Who is this?"
"Ringggg!"
"Yes, yes, yes I am lost!...hello?...are you still there?...hello?"

You can get almost any old, routine nag to stop drinking water that's foul,
but to get one to give up on a sparkling, bright brook is another matter
entirely -- a matter left to those who would go past merely "thinking about"
freeing themselves from their thought-induced daze, and realize that they
must ultimately liberate their effort from the belief that there is a mental
effort that will free them from their mental captivity.

"My money in the fourth race is on Give It Up...also in the first, second,
and third."

The Plan, as perceived by many claim-to-be-travelers:
If you don't know precisely where you're going,
make your map as complex as possible.
...That way, as you stumble around to nowhere, during your many stops to
rest, you have something to do -- continually reexamine your map while
cursing its inaccuracy.

 

On some days when one man would find certain conditions present,
he'd think of them as being useful in this approach:
"Feelin' a little rough,
to get myself
up to snuff."

If you wait for circumstances to "get just right," for you to get just right,
your get-right day will never come.

In that thought is the source of all mortal problems, and in that thought's
point of origin is always conditions, and in that conditions are always
changing, and in that, and in that, and in that, etc. (Don't you see?)

"Define normalcy."
"Repetition."
"Define idiocy."
"Lack of recognizing repetition."

Life called up a guy (or the guy called up life, I forget which, anyway)
life called the guy and said, "Look, Bub, if I'd a'wanted you to remember
what each airport looks like, from one city to the next, that you go
through, I'd a'never hired you as a travlin' salesman in the first place."
And the man thought to himself, "Hah! the pudding's on you -- you didn't
hire me in the first place." "I didn't come on board 'til we got to Memphis."

[Knock, knock.] "Hello, Madam, could I interest you in encyclopedias that
will also do drapes?"
("Could you define 'normalcy' again?")