The stuff of nightmare is their plain bread. They butter it with pain. They set their clocks by deathwatch beetles, and thrive the centuries. They were the men with the leather-ribbon whips who sweated up the Pyramids seasoning it with other people's salt and other people's cracked hearts. They coursed Europe on the White Horses of the Plague. They whispered to Caesar that he was mortal, then sold daggers at half-price in the grand March sale. Some must have been lazing clowns, foot props for emperors, princes, and epileptic popes. Then out on the road, Gypsies in time, their populations grew as the world grew, spread, and there was more delicious variety of pain to thrive on. The train put wheels under them and here they run down the log road out of the Gothic and baroque; look at their wagons and coaches, the carving like medieval shrines, all of it stuff once drawn by horses, mules, or, maybe, men.

A mind is a simulation that simulates itself.

The purpose of life is to reach a point where you can say 'yes' to all of it.

If you want to see, then begin to see how you see.

Peace of mind arrives the moment you come to peace with the contents of your mind.

Sooner or later on this journey, every traveller faces the same question: Are you a human intending to be a god, or a god pretending to be human?