You seem to forget, Miss Flinn, that this is an institution for the insane.

To Vik Lovell who told me dragons did not exist, then led me to their lairs.

What can you pay for the way a man lives? What can you pay for what a man is?

I listened to them fade away till all I could hear was my memory of the sound.

Don't say it...I've seen too many loves sundered by too much needless honesty.

Loved. You can't use it in the past tense. Death does not stop that love at all.

There's something about taking a plow and breaking new ground. It gives you energy.

You don't plow under the corn because the seed was planted with a neighbor's shovel.

What makes people so impatient is what I can't figure; all the guy had to do was wait.

I used to think we were going to win in the '60s. Nixon went out and I thought we won.

There's a lot of people who don't understand the circle crops in England. Pure enigma.

You can count how many seeds are in the apple, but not how many apples are in the seed.

Since we don't know where we're going, we have to stick together in case someone gets there.

I've been to too many Dead concerts. There've been smokin' holes where my memory used to be.

But he won’t let the pain blot out the humor no more’n he’ll let the humor blot out the pain.

We think we’re in the present, but we aren't. The present we know is only a movie of the past.

Allen Ginsberg is a tremendous warrior as time goes by. He's a warrior first and a poet second.

I've enjoyed being a famous writer-except that every once in a while you have to write something.

I'm so insane, I voted for Eisenhower. Oh yeah, well I'm so insane, I voted for Eisenhower TWICE!

Sometimes I looked at them and sometimes they looked at me, but rarely did we look at one another.

I've found psychedelics to be keys to worlds that have always existed, that have to be talked about.

You're making sense, old man, a sense of your own. You're not crazy the way they think. Yes...I see.

Me and Norman Mailer have talked about how hard it is in America to get better. Especially at writing.

The job of the writer is to kiss no ass, no matter how big and holy and white and tempting and powerful.

I sometimes have these spells of compulsive truth. But as Lady Macbeth would say, "The fit is momentary."

There are going to be times when we can't wait for somebody. Now, you're either on the bus or off the bus.

They did type me as a horror writer, but I have been able to do all sorts of things within that framework.

The best of all possible cages.' Ben stepped back to regard the job with a sad smile. 'What more can one ask?

Listen, wait, and be patient. Every shaman knows you have to deal with the fire that's in your audience's eye.

Leary can get a part of my mind that's kind of rusted shut grinding again, just by being around him and talking.

You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.

Living is the purpose of life, And meaning can be found therein. I finds thou. Thou becomes it. And it begins again.

It is bad to suppress laughter. It goes back down to your hips. Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.

Major part of the Southern California pop scene in the 60s "People think that love is an emotion. Love is good sense."

When Shakespeare was writing, he wasn't writing for stuff to lie on the page; it was supposed to get up and move around.

There's no disgrace in failing, lad, Though friends and foes deride; In fact, a failure's not so bad As never having tried.

The secret of being a top-notch con man is being able to know what the mark wants, and how to make him think he's getting it.

When you're around the whole Dead scene, they're there as a tribal thing; they're there as part of a rendezvous and a pow-wow.

It's time to move on to the next step in the psychedelic revolution. We've reached a certain point, but we're not moving any more.

The Grateful Dead are our religion. This is a religion that doesn't pay homage to the God that all the other religions pay homage to.

People don't want other people to get high, because if you get high, you might see the falsity of the fabric of the society we live in.

Things you think you're saying for the first time ever, have been said better before by Shakespeare, though they may need saying again.

This world… belongs to the strong, my friend! The ritual of our existence is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak.

Billy here has been talkin' about slicin' his wrists again, so is there seven of you guys who'd like to join him and make it therapeutic?

I felt like you can write forever, but you have a short time to raise a family. And I think a family is a lot more important than writing.

The stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon

All I know is this: nobody's very big in the first place, and it looks to me like everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down.

You've got to get out and pray to the sky to appreciate the sunshine; otherwise you're just a lizard standing there with the sun shining on you.

I'd take a look at my own self in the mirror and wonder how it was possible that anybody could manage such an enormous thing as being what he was.

He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.

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