Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

I get into a rut, unable to yank my mind out of it.

I try not to think about anything special while running. As a matter of fact, I usually run with my mind empty. However, when I run empty-minded, something naturally and abruptly crawls in sometime. That might become an idea that can help me with my writing.

Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday.

I'm tryin' to think, but nothin' happens!

Every person should make it his business to gather new ideas from sources other than the environment in which he daily lives and works. The mind becomes withered, stagnant, narrow and closed unless it searches for new ideas.

The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do; the task can be as paralysing as having to tell a joke or mimic an accent on demand.

My brain was all right back then; it didn't get stuck in ruts.

Eastern meditation is an attempt to empty the mind; Christian meditation is an attempt to fill the mind. The two ideas are quite different

Things often offer themselves to our mind in a more finished form in the very first thought, than we might have made them by muchart and study.

One must confront vague ideas with clear images.

Malander had an idea and was trying to work it out, but it would take him time. Sometimes people never saw things clearly until it was too late and they no longer had the strength to start again. Or else they forgot their idea along the way and didn't even realise that they forgotten.

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything.

Often when works at a hard question, nothing good is accomplished at the first attack. Then one takes a rest, long or short, and sits down anew to the work. During the first half-hour, as before, nothing is found, and then all of a sudden the decisive idea presents itself to the mind.

Once your mind is caught on the right snag, there's nothing so hard about the mechanics of writing.

Nothing is more tragic - or more common - than mental inertia.

When you're glad to be alive, good ideas come. The reason good ideas don't come today is because we're all bottled up with greed and anger. We're mad.

The smallest quantity of alcohol scares away novel ideas.

He who would reproach an author for obscurity should look into his own mind to see whether it is quite clear there. In the dusk the plainest writing is illegible.

If you're having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down. For me, slowing down has been a tremendous source of creativity. It has allowed me to open up -- to know that there's life under the earth and that I have to let it come through me in a new way. Creativity exists in the present moment. You can't find it anywhere else.

When your mind opens, the whole world falls into place.

The youth have a prodigious talent for inventing progressive ideas and alternative courses of action that elude the jaded, in-the-box minds of worn-down adults.

Talking about things that are understandable only weighs down the mind.

My mind contains many good ideas, but it's not always easy to squeeze one out.