Robert M. Pirsig Quotes

I was an intellectual groupie. Still am.

Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.

People with a high tolerance for boredom can get a lot of thinking done.

There is one art of which people should be masters - the art of reflection.

I realized that, to a large degree, I had kept my rational mind at bay my whole life. I just acted on intuition in terms of how I related to life. At some point, my rational mind started creeping in, and it would not shut up. I finally had to address it and confront it. I think most intelligent people, at a younger age than I have, begin to question some of the fundamental assumptions our society promotes. But me, I just rejected it without even considering it.

Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience.

Silence is the necessary soil for any thought to flourish.

When I'm between projects, I keep a journal I call a 'thought log,' and it's my practice to write down whatever interests me.

I like my mind being stimulated. I like discovering new concepts.

We need to discern what it is that requires reflection in our lives and in what we read and how we read it.

I like to make people a little uncomfortable. It encourages them to examine who they are and why they think the way they do.

I thought, "Wow, it sounds really stoned anyway." It sounded good to me. I found out that there was a lot in there. What all this comes down to is I was just trying to get in touch with myself. And I met some interesting people in New York who weren't in show business. I even got to know my dentist.

The image that concerns most people is the reflection they see in other people's minds.

It is a joy to be choked with thought.

We skim over the surface thoughtlessly. But we must acknowledge that thinking well is a time-consuming process. We can't expect instant results. We have to slow down a bit, and take the time to contemplate, meditate, and even pray. It is the only route to a more meaningful and efficient existence.

It is the mark of a superior person that, left to themselves they are able endlessly to amuse, interest and entertain themselves out of their personal stock of meditations, ideas, criticisms, memories, philosophy, humor and what not.

I think it's important for people like me to evaluate and reevaluate.

You see, one of the best things about reading is that you'll always have something to think about when you're not reading.

Boredom is not an end-product, is comparatively rather an early stage in life and art. You've got to go by or past or through boredom, as through a filter, before the clear product emerges.

Self-reflection is the school of wisdom.

Perhaps the most fundamental value of a liberal education is that it makes life more interesting. It allows you to think things which do not occur to the less learned ... it makes it less likely that you will be bored with life.

I doubt about myself. I think doubts are good in life. The people who don't have doubts I think only two things-arrogance or not intelligence.

Your own private journal should record the way you face up to challenges that beset you. Do not suppose life changes so much that your experiences will not be interesting to your posterity. Experiences of work, relations with people, and an awareness of the rightness and wrongness of actions will always be relevant.

You're always thinking, "What does that add up to?" You can't really get a handle on it. I was curious. I felt like it would be an interesting challenge for me to write down what I'd seen and done and learned - all the convolutions captured in one item that I could look at and get some grip on what the hell happened.