You must take your chance on what you are. And you can’t sit still. I know this double poser, that if you make a move you may lose but if you sit still you will decay. But what will you lose? You will not invent better than God or nature or turn yourself into the man who lacks no gift or development before you make the move. This is not given to us.
Is it an easier farewell for Dad if we don’t part friends?
Strict and literal truthfulness was a trivial game and might even be a disagreeable neurotic affliction.
They did not know how much he cared for them. No. It hurt him greatly and he blamed Margaret for turning them against him. She wanted to ruin him, while she wore the mask of kindness.
Margaret would tell him he did not really want a divorce; he was afraid of it. He cried, “Take everything I’ve got, Margaret. Let me go to Reno. Don’t you want to marry again?” No. She went out with other men, but took his money. She lived in order to punish him.
No court would have awarded her the amounts he paid.
But such vexations always filled me with energy as well. And if I later became such a formidable mass of credentials it was because I put such slights to good use. I avenged myself by making progress.
Didn’t Margaret know that he was nearly at the end of his rope? Of course. Her instinct told her that this was her opportunity, and she was giving him the works.
It is better to die what you are than to live a stranger forever.
He chased ruin and death even harder than he had chased women. He blew his talent and his health and reached home, the grave, in a dusty slide.
To God he jotted several lines. How my mind has struggled to make coherent sense. I have not been too good at it. But have desired to do your unknowable will, taking it, and you, without symbols. Everything of intensest significance. Especially if divested of me.
Mind you, I’m a great admirer of our species. I stand in awe of the genius of the race. But a large part of this genius is devoted to lying and seeming what you are not.
Thoughts should be real. Words should have a definite meanings and a man should believe what he said.
Certain expressions burn people up, and especially the expression of wisdom, which can lead you straight to the loony bin. You will have earned it!
Korzybski, Aristotle, Freud, W. H. Sheldon, and all the great poets.
Reality instructors. They want to teach you – to punish you with – the lessons of the Real.
But I have had visions of judgment. I see mainly the obstinacy of cripples. We do not love ourselves, but persist in stubbornness. Each man is stubbornly, stubbornly himself.
Affable! His own son, his one and only son, could not speak his mind or ease his heart to him.
You are lazy, disgraceful, tougher than you think but not yet a dead loss. In part you are humanly okay. We are supposed to do something for our kind. Don’t get frenzied about money. Overcome your greed. Better luck with women. Last of all – remember: we are not natural beings but supernatural beings.
But how we love looking fine in the eyes of the world – how beautiful are the old when they are doing a snow job!