Thomas Pynchon Quotes

I secretly think reality exists so we can speculate about it.

Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?

I stick my finger into existence.. it smells of nothing. Where am I? Who am I? What is this thing called the world? What does this word mean?

That which is cannot be true.

The world is real. Consciousness is the illusion.

Common sense says that chairs and tables exist independently of whether anyone happens to perceive them or not.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

Perhaps life is just that... a dream and a fear.

It's often said that life is strange. But compared to what?

I think that reality exists and that it's knowable.

Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way.

Einstein said, if everything exists as a substance of qualities, and qualities exist only in mind, then all is mind.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.

Human beings are not capable of creating a thought that truly conceives of this existence. Nobody knows if we are really here, alive, or anything. It's a mystery.

'Do not touch ontologically' doesn't mean 'are separated by empirically measurable hard edges.'

What, then is truth?... Truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are.

When millions of tons of angry elephant come spinning through the sky, and there was no one there to hear it, does it - philosopically speaking - make a noise

I'm the idea of the human imagination, which, when you think about it, is the only thing we can really be certain ISN'T imaginary.

You can't prove that something doesn't exist. You can only prove that something does exist.

Democritus says, "But we know nothing really; for truth lies deep down".

Just as man's physical existence was liberated when he grasped that 'nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed', so his consciousness will be liberated when grasps that nature, to be apprehended, must be obeyed - that the rules of cognition must be derived from the nature of existence and the nature, the identity, of his cognitive faculty.

The world could be anything, you know, It could be a solid state matrix of some sort. It could be an illusion. It could be a dream. I mean it really could be a dream.

Life, what is it but a dream?

There is much more mystery in the shadow of a man walking on a sunny day, than in all religions of the world.

Every man feels that perception gives him an invincible belief of the existence of that which he perceives; and that this belief is not the effect of reasoning, but the immediate consequence of perception. When philosophers have wearied themselves and their readers with their speculations upon this subject, they can neither strengthen this belief, nor weaken it; nor can they shew how it is produced. It puts the philosopher and the peasant upon a level; and neither of them can give any other reason for believing his senses, than that he finds it impossible for him to do otherwise.