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They want to hear that Buddhism is the answer to all of their problems, not a big fat arrow pointing to the source of all of their problems: ego.

—Shozan Jack Haubner in Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk

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Buddhism is not a refuge from life. It is life stripped bare and known most intimately. Zen doesn't make you a "better person." It helps you become fully human. My mentor was no model for how to behave perfectly but for how to experience completely. He never told me how to live my life. He just helped me become alive.

—Shozan Jack Haubner in Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk

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…you are meant to grow into a true human being. Right now you are to a human being what an acorn is to an oak tree. A good start, that's all. You've got a long way to go, baby, and you're not going to grow into your full potential sitting in front of the laptop, bag of Cool Ranch Doritos in one hand, dick in the other, anime porn boring a hole in your corneas and consciousness. Just a thought.

—Shozan Jack Haubner in Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk

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In the Buddhist view, I depend on you for my existence. All things depend on each other, equally. Welcome to the doctrine of dependent origination. It's teeter-totter metaphysics—I arise, you arise; you arise, I arise. Forget about our presumed Maker, the divine machinist in the sky. Take a look at this moment right now. You are you because you are not something else; therefore, what you are not—the chair beneath you, the air in your lungs, these words—births you through an infinity of opposites. It's like the ultimate Dr. Seuss riddle: Without all the things that are not you, who would you be you to? There's no Higher Power in this system to grab on to for support; we are all already supporting each other. Pull a person or people the wrong way and you immediately redefine yourself in light of what you've done to your neighbor.

—Shozan Jack Haubner in Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk

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Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty.

—Samuel Johnson in The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

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The first years of man must make provision for the last.

—Samuel Johnson in The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

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A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.

—Samuel Johnson in The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

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Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed.

—Samuel Johnson in The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

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I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

—Samuel Johnson

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His scorn of the great is repeated too often to be real; no man thinks much of that which he despises.

—Samuel Johnson

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There are wonderful things in real jazz, the talent for improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience.

—Henri Matisse

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Disposition to derision and insult is awakened by the softness to foppery, the swell of insolence, the liveliness of levity, or the solemnity of grandeur by the sprightly trip, the stately stalk, the formal strut, and the lofty mein by gestures intended to catch the eye, and by looks elaborately formed as evidences of importance.

—Samuel Johnson

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The liveliness of literature lies in its exceptionality, in being the individual, idiosyncratic vision of one human being, in which, to our delight and great surprise, we may find our own vision reflected.

—Salman Rushdie

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As a child, I lived with being punier than other boys in class. The only consolation was my parents' empathy - they encouraged constant trips to the local drugstore for chocolate milk shakes to fatten me up. The shakes made me happy, but still, all through grammar school, other kids shoved me around.

—James D. Watson

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Ed felt faint. Milk shake, as it turned out, was much less handy in your veins then, say, oxygen.

—Francine Pascal in Sam

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