"The sage does not become trapped in semantics, does not mistake map for territory, but rather 'opens things up to the light of Heaven' by flowing with the words, by playing with the words. Once attuned to this flow, the sage need make no special effort to 'illumine,' for language does it by itself, spontaneously. Language spills over."

"The practice of cultivating altruism has a beneficial effect not only from the religious point of view but also from the mundane point of view, not only for long term spiritual development but even in terms of immediate rewards."

"You're - psychotic. There's something wrong with you.'I know,' Benteley agreed. 'I'm a sick man. And the more I see, the sicker I get. I'm so sick I think everybody else is sick and I'm the only healthy person. That's pretty bad off, isn't it?"

"Why then you're as mad as me. No, madder. For I distrust 'reality' and its moron mother, the universe, while you fasten your innocence to fallible devices which pretend at happy endings."

"Maybe they’re not as mindless as we thought, or so dedicated to turning every last human into one of them. Like Kalyn says, they were just bored, waiting for something better to happen.And that better thing is us."

"I suppose the spiritual trance is harder to break than the religious one because the delusion is more difficult to distinguish. You have a quasi-cloud of ideas that include wonderful concepts of openness and altruism without the blatant anthropomorphism of religion."