Better to quarrel with a friend than to support enemies.

Enlightenment must come little by little - otherwise it would overwhelm.

The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.

Knowledge is not gained, it is there all the time. It is the "veils" which have to be dissolved in the mind.

Trying to force something is the best way to stop it happening.

Opinion is usually something which people have when they lack comprehensive information.

You must empty out the dirty water before you fill the pitcher with clean.

The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.

Meditation - Before you learn how to meditate, you must unlearn what you think meditation might be.

Have you noticed how many people who walk in the shade curse the Sun?

Right time, right place, right people equals success. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people equals most of the real human history.

When I write sad songs, I feel like I'm sewing up a scar in me, and the outcome always feels so much better than when I write happy ones.

Keeping records enhances the pleasure of the search and the chance of finding order and meaning in these events.

It sounds formulaic now, but at the time, I was interested in the difference between the thing and the representation of the idea of the thing - the space between the two.

You're getting everyone's point of view at the same time, which for me, is the perfect state for a novel: a cubist state, the cubist novel.

You must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff.

In a climate of uncertainty and fear, without strong and visionary leadership, people panic.

I, for one, have no interest at all in having my heart stolen.

No, the only way to know what people think is to watch what they do, not what they say. Do they come back for more? Do you cause them to change their behavior? Can you make them smile?

The observer of beauty always receives a passion to share the beauty with others.

Civility isn't just some optional value in a multicultural, multistate democratic republic. Civility is the key to civilization.