"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
"The truth is that an artist’s appraisal of his own work, in terms of how much better some stuff is than other stuff, is probably completely meaningless. If you grab a random person off the street and hold up two things and say this is my good shit and this is my bad shit, he probably won’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. 9 out of 10 people will probably say it’s the same exact shit."