Terence McKenna (Terence Kemp McKenna) Quotes
I often like to think that our map of the world is wrong, that where we have centered physics, we should actually place literature as the central metaphor that we want to work out from. Because I think literature occupies the same relationship to life that life occupies to death. A book is life with one dimension pulled out of it. And life is something that lacks a dimension which death will give it. I imagine death to be a kind of release into the imagination in the sense that for characters in a book, what we experience is an unimaginable dimension of freedom.
Quotes to Explore
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What I know about this world is that white people will take care of themselves. And what I have learned is that if you are where they are on an equal basis, they cannot take care of themselves without taking care of you.
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If I want popularity, I go to a chef's convention.
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Even complex passwords are getting easy to break if they're too short. That's because today's inexpensive computer chips have the power of supercomputers from the year 2000.
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We have been given a role to play. We have been asked to provide, to give lectures on the role of Islamic development and the way we do it here, so the people who are Muslims there would understand what the role of Islam is.
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I sometimes try to think of my life as an Iranian, and it is hard to imagine. I am grateful for the life I have had in America and all the amazing opportunities and experiences it has given me. But there is a spirit in Iranians I can see that is unbounded by geography.
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Hollywood, the business, would be just fine if someone were to destroy the Hollywood sign. The city's there is the airport - its point of entry and exit, and in some ways its identity.
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I love the ubiquitous idly-dosa combination. In fact, that was my pet name as a kid! In school, I would bug the canteen boys to get me my daily quota of idly!
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The sort of poetry I seek resides in objects man can't touch.
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One of my earliest memories is of being about three and a half, climbing through the legs of a man who I didn't know was the famous actor, Patrick Magee.
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I grew up with a pet iguana named Willy. We had a very contentious relationship. It turns out that iguanas are not meant to live in suburban homes.
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Our regulatory bodies strive to create honest dealings, fair trades, and a situation in which no one has an advantage over anyone else. But human beings aren't honest. And all trades are made because one person thinks he's getting the better of the other, and the other person thinks the same.
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There's only one way to become a hitter. Go up to the plate and get mad. Get mad at yourself and mad at the pitcher.
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It's not my style to judge anybody.
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I'm waiting for them to come up with a 'Star Trek' thing so they can beam me from my house to the gigs and back.
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I think subsuming political and economic conflicts into some grand 'clash of civilisations' theory or 'the West versus the rest' binary is a particularly insidious form of ideological deception.
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I kinda went through a semi-depression. Honestly. Like, I lost myself.
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If you look at suburban education in New Jersey and New York, it's pretty strong, intact, doing a pretty good job. You cap taxes for those communities, can we reasonably predict it's going to be as strong 20 years from now?
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I'm a mac and cheese freak. Homemade or from the blue box, I'm not picky!
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I subscribe to William Faulkner's' view that history is not just about what we were before but who we are now.
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I like people who are predictable.
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The best thing ever is when some guy in his 50s taps me on the shoulder and says, 'I just want to let you know I hate my job, I hate my wife, and I come home and I watch reruns of your show and it's the only half hour of the day when I laugh and I forget how miserable life is.'
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It's been said that the men in my books have been absent, or weak, or creepy.
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I often like to think that our map of the world is wrong, that where we have centered physics, we should actually place literature as the central metaphor that we want to work out from. Because I think literature occupies the same relationship to life that life occupies to death. A book is life with one dimension pulled out of it. And life is something that lacks a dimension which death will give it. I imagine death to be a kind of release into the imagination in the sense that for characters in a book, what we experience is an unimaginable dimension of freedom.
