Paul Auster Quotes

In a universe made out of energy, everything is entangled; everything is one.

To view any individual as being independent of relationality is like viewing a point outside of a line, a line outside of a figure, a figure outside of a body.

Nowadays, the process of growth and development almost never seems to manage to create this subtle balance between the importance of the individual parts, and the coherence of the environment as a whole. One or the other always dominates.

Individuality is only possible if it unfolds from wholeness.

Man is unable to see himself entirely unrelated to mankind, neither is he able to see mankind unrelated to life, nor life unrelated to the universe.

I don't believe in the separation between mankind and nature. Mankind is nature.

I love individuals. I think people are terrific as I meet and get to know them. I like imagination. I like the freedom that this society manages to parcel out to us in the midst of the rest of what they do to you. I also like thinking about the fact that the atoms in me are the same atoms that are in all the rest of the universe, and that every one of those atoms came from the middle of a star. In other words, it's only me out there.

You are the Universe expressing itself as a human for a little while.

We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves," the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.

We are one species. We are starstuff.

We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity.

Your lower self sees you as the center of the universe- your higher self sees you as a cell in the body of humanity.

When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the universe ... The whole wilderness is unity and interrelation, is alive and familiar, full of humanity. The very stones seem talkative, sympathetic, brotherly.

In the particular is contained the universal.

We are the universe pretending to be individuals.

Every individual is a unique manifestation of the Whole, as every branch is a particular outreaching of the tree.

I am part of the sun as my eye is of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea.

You're not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.

There are differences between us. But it doesn't make sense to emphasize that, because my future and yours is connected with everyone else's. So we have to take seriously our concern for all of humanity. When we focus on our individuality, humanity inevitably suffers. And once humanity suffers, each one of us will also suffer.

My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?

Remember that you are this universe and that this universe is you.

I am the drop that contains the ocean

For every individual is a unique manifestation of the Whole, as every branch is a particular outreaching of the tree. To manifest individuality, every branch must have a sensitive connection with the tree, just as our independently moving and differentiated fingers must have a sensitive connection with the whole body. The point, which can hardly be repeated too often, is that differentiation is not separation.

I turned my head to the sky, to the sun, to the stars, and put a little piece of my love in every star, in the moon, in the sun, and they loved me back. And I became one with the moon and the sun and the stars, and my love kept growing and growing. And I put a little piece of my love in every human, and I became one with the whole of humanity. Wherever I go, whomever I meet, I see myself in their eyes, because I am a part of everything, because I love.