# Leben

"Whether rich or poor, following the Should Life will lead to heartache and struggle. Leading your life will lead to places you never thought you'd be, people you never thought you'd meet, knowledge you never thought you'd gain, and a life of adventure and growth. Lead your life; not the Should Life."

"When ill, the patient assumes what Parsons called 'the sick-role'. Accordingly, the sick person is, on the one hand, excused his or her social responsabilites, but, on the other hand, is expected to desire a return to health and to comply unquestioningly with the directives of medical experts in order to achieve this goal."

"I elbow my way through the mass of people to get to my locker because there's something immensely satisfying about the toughest part of my arm connecting with the softest part of everyone else."

"I shuffle along, letting the current pull me, and I have the sense that I am like a rat caught in a maze of tunnels, moving endlessly toward some promise of...Of what? Light? Life? Cheese?"

"Don't change yourself for anyone, you may struggle a lot to do so... When you are completely changed, people wants the old one to get back again, which would be a difficult task ever for you..."

"I knew I would stay in this town when I found the blue enamel pot floating in the lake. The pot led me to the house, the house led me to the book, the book to the lawyer, the lawyer to the whorehouse, the whorehouse to science, and from science I joined the world."

"It's really unfair to working women in America who read celebrity news and think, 'Why can't I lose weight when I've had a baby?' Well, everyone you're reading about has money for a trainer and a chef. That doesn't make it realistic."

"From the Buddhist point of view, it is true that emptiness is a characteristic of all of life - if we look carefully at any experience we will find transparency, insubstantiality, with no solid, unchanging core to our experience. But that does not mean that nothing matters."

"If there existed no external means for dimming their consciences, one-half of the men would at once shoot themselves, because to live contrary to one's reason is a most intolerable state, and all men of our time are in such a state."

"Our abilities and possibilities are at one and the same time very limited and quite infinite dependent on the depth of our relationship to our 'self', others and life itself."