Terence McKenna (Terence Kemp McKenna) Quotes
There is no liberation to compare with freeing oneself from the illusions and delusions of the age in which one lives.
Quotes to Explore
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I've never been a six-foot-tall, skinny model, so therefore, I want to create an illusion. People always think I'm taller than I am - not just because of the shoes I wear but because of the way I dress. It's all relatively streamlined.
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What a liberation to realize that the 'voice in my head' is not who I am. 'Who am I, then?' The one who sees that.
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We're in an illusion about what our role is in world politics and foreign affairs, and our policies are killing and destroying and doing a lot of things that we are not aware of.
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There's nothing like the eureka moment of knocking off a song that didn't exist before - I won't compare it to sex, but it lasts longer.
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Not counting Small Steps, I think Holes is my best book, in terms of plot, and setting, and the way the story revealed itself. It hasn’t changed my life, other than that I have more money than I did before I wrote it. I’m still too close to Small Steps to compare it to Holes.
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Was it possible in any relationship to not disappoint, to do anything more than only briefly rekindle the initial fatal illusion?
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My illusion is to have something to transmit. If I can't change the world, at least I want to change the way people look at it.
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Wherever learning breeds specialists, the sum of human culture is enhanced thereby. That is the illusion and consolation of specialists.
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God gave me some weird, beautiful scent that makes men and women go crazy. People compare it to Carvel. It is a whale of a smell.
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Alas, the spheres of truth are less transparent than those of
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There is no satisfaction that can compare with looking back across the years and finding you've grown in self-control, judgment, generosity, and unselfishness.
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If you watch Michael Jackson [1992] concerts from Budapest and compare it to a Madonna concert of today, you'll see such uplifting beauty and a message that you won't see in any other artist of our time.
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If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.
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Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly concrete Person.
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David Brin is a technological determinist. He thinks that we understand the trend and we need to hop on it. I don't have any such illusions.
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I don't have any delusions. I'm not a novelist - I'm a comedian who writes. I love doing the stand-up and the touring and the albums and all that, but it's pretty amazing to go into a library and see your book there.
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I am convinced that those who get themselves involved in the machinery of power politics, even for the purpose of destroying it, are bound to fail in their purpose. To destroy it we have to stay out of it. If we want to cut down a tree, it is of no use to climb into its branches. The desire to keep contact with something, even to destroy it, is a subtle and insidious illusion.
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Growing up is losing some illusions, in order to acquire others.
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The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.
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The Armstrong record that I personally like the most, is a recording of a song by Harold Arlen called, "I Got a Right to Sing the Blues" . Most of Armstrong's solos tended to stick pretty close to the melody. But for some reason, it's like he let go of the tether and suddenly he's playing this beautiful high, almost abstract line that's floating above the beat. I compare it to the way that a 19th century operatic tenor might have sang an Aria because he's just completely let loose of the background and he's making this magic sort of flying above the staff.
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We have no control over the outcome of anything. Like the planet and global warming, we don't control that. If politicians want a war we don't control that. Acts of terrorism, we can't control them.
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The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension.
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There is no liberation to compare with freeing oneself from the illusions and delusions of the age in which one lives.
