All I can tell you with certainty is that I, for one, have no self, and that I am unwilling or unable to perpetrate upon myself the joke of a self.... What I have instead is a variety of impersonations I can do, and not only of myself - a troupe of players that I have internalised, a permanent company of actors that I can call upon when a self is required.... I am a theater and nothing more than a theater.
Philip RothRelated topics
call certainty company joke nothing self tell troupeRelated quotes
God is only an idea in your mind. The fact is you. The only thing you know for sure is: ‘here and now I am.' Remove the 'here and now' the ‘I am' remains, unassailable. (...). All I can say truly is: ‘I am,' all else is inference (...). The sense ‘I am' is the manifestation of a deeper cause, which you may call self, God, Reality or by any other name. (...).
Nisargadatta Maharaj
In its widest possible sense, however, a man's Self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down.
William James
"What are you trying to do, Kerouac?" I'd ask myself in my sleepingbag at night, "trying to deny reality with all this Buddha stuff, ya jerk?" ... "Poor detailed immaculate incarnate fool, and you call yourself Self ... Take off your coat and crash wits." And I realized that all this Buddhism was a STRAIN at telling the untellable emptiness yet that nothing was truer, a perfect paradox.
Jack Kerouac
There are advantages to being the chairman. One of my favorite perks was picking out an issue and doing what I called a "deep dive." It's spotting a challenge where you think you can make a difference- one that looks like it would be fun- and then throwing the weight of your position behind it. Some might justifiably call it "meddling." I've often done this- just about everywhere in the company.
Jack Welch
It should also be born in mind that the research on 'movement' and the dynamic outlook on the world, which were the basis of Futurist theory, in no way required one to paint nothing but speeding cars or ballerinas in action; for a person who is seated, or an inanimate object, though apparently static, could be considered dynamically and suggest dynamic forms. I may mention as an example [his paintings] the 'Portrait of Madame S.
Gino Severini