“The whole life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself; indeed, we should be fully born when we die - although it is the tragic fate of most individuals to die befor...”

“That millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”

“We consume, as we produce, without any concrete relatedness to the objects with which we deal; We live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or t...”

“We... have created a greater material wealth than any other society in the history of the human race. Yet we have managed to kill off millions of our population in an arrangement which we call "war.”

“Both the mentally healthy and the neurotic are driven by the need to find an answer [to the problem of human existence], the only difference being that one answer corresponds more to the total need...”

“It is the task of the "science of man" to arrive eventually at a correct description of what deserves to be called human nature. What has often been called "human nature" is but one of its many man...”

“I think the highest forgiveness is to accept that creation is thoroughly tangled, with every possible quality given outlet for expression. People need to accept once and for all that there is only ...”

“You couldn't relive your life, skipping the awful parts, without losing what made it worthwhile. You had to accept it as a whole--like the world, or the person you loved.”

“Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.”

“I am a person before I am anything else. I never say I am a writer. I never say I am an artist...I am a person who does those things.”

“The point, I decided, wasn't to have the autobiography or even the memories. The point was who I became when I wrote.”

“The willingness to reach inside every part of yourself opens the door to total understanding. You place your entire identity on the line, not just an isolated part. This may sound daunting, but act...”

“why are trying so hard to fit in, when you're born to stand out”

“It kills me how these days everyone has clinical justification for their strangeness.”

“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are”