"We are all as much extraordinary phenomena..." - Quote by Alan Watts

“For the world is an ever-elusive and ever-disappointing mirage only from the standpoint of someone standing aside from it—as if it were quite other than himself—and then trying to grasp it. But a third response is possible. Not withdrawal, not stewardship on the hypothesis of a future reward, but the fullest collaboration with the world as a harmonious system of contained conflicts—based on the realization that the only real "I" is the whole endless process.”

“To go out of your mind once a day is tremendously important, because by going out of your mind you come to your senses. And if you stay in your mind all of the time, you are over rational, in other words you are like a very rigid bridge which because it has no give; no craziness in it, is going to be blown down by the first hurricane.”

“Increasingly, the world around us looks as if we hated it.”

“Note that venerable proverb: Children and fools always speak the truth. The deduction is plain: adults and wise persons never speak it.”

“In a state of nature, the weakest go to the wall; in a state of over-refinement, both the weak and the strong go to the gutter.”

“If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.”

“They always say to Californians that we don't have seasons. Of course, that is not true. We have fire, flood, mud and drought.”

“In your hands The dog, the donkey, surely they know They are alive. Who would argue otherwise? But now, after years of consideration, I am getting beyond that. What about the sunflowers? What about The tulips, and the pines? Listen, all you have to do is start and There’ll be no stopping. What about mountains? What about water Slipping over rocks? And speaking of stones, what about The little ones you can Hold in your hands, their heartbeats So secret, so hidden it may take years Before, finally, you hear them?”

“Renunciation is in our blood.”