Jerzy Kosinski Quotes

I don't buy diamonds, I don't buy cars, but I enjoy travelling. I'm not a very possessive person as far as things go.

My first rule of consumerism is never to buy anything you can't make your children carry.

I don't shop.

When we think about the trends that millennials are taking toward simplicity, I think it's indicative of a cultural shift toward less of the 'more is more' for materialism sake and more of an emphasis on efficiency, value, and sustainability.

In the '80s, the world I was living in wasn't this world of consumption. There wasn't that much to buy, really. Actually I'm still struck by that. There's not an awful lot of stuff I want. Somebody quotes Diogenes, who's walking around saying, "How many things there are in the marketplace of which Diogenes has no need." I always feel that. Except of course when you're living in Venice, California and you see all these lovely houses!

The end of consumerism and accumulation is the beginning of the joy of living.

The time will come when mankind will begin to get away from the consciousness of needing so many material things. More security and peace will be found in the simple life.

I drive old cars, all my Patagonia clothes are years and years old, I hardly have anything new. I try to lead a very simple life. I am not a consumer of anything. And I much prefer sleeping on somebody's floor than in a motel room.

Modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at its lifestyle. In many parts of the world society is given to instant gratification and consumerism while remaining indifferent to the damage which these attitudes cause. Simplicity, moderation and discipline, as well as a spirit of sacrifice, must become part of everyday life, lest all suffer the negative consequences of the careless habits of a few.

But I don't want more things than I need, either.

There is a close relationship between a house full of possessions and a heart full of desires, between a cluttered closet and a crowded schedule, between having no place to put possessions and having no priorities for our life. These are precious clues. They remind us to slow down, to live in the present, to reduce the desires that drain our vitality, to clarify priorities so we can give our time and attention to what matters most. Tragically, in the press of modern life, we have managed to get backwards one of life's most vital truths: people are to be loved; things are to be used.

Man needs so little... yet he begins wanting so much.

How few our real wants, and how vast our imaginary ones!

The more you own, the more it owns you.

Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens.

It's great not to be a collector.

She said, "Do you have more things that you need, or more that you don't need?" I said, "It depends on what it means to need.

Perhaps the less we have, the more we are required to brag.

The less you eat, drink and read books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save-the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor dust will devour-your capital. The less you are, the more you have; the less you express your own life, the greater is your alienated life-the greater is the store of your estranged being.

I don't think people today need to derive security from possessions.

The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.

We must get out of materialism.

But that's how it is when you start wanting to have things. Now, I just look at them, and when I go away I carry them in my head. Then my hands are always free, because I don't have to carry a suitcase.

Yeah, I guess I'm economical. Not because I try, but because I'm really not that interested in shoes.

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. ... Shall we always study to obtain more, and not sometimes be content with less?