Terence McKenna (Terence Kemp McKenna) Quotes

We want freedom. We want freedom from the constraints of the cycles of the sun and the moon. We want freedom from drought and weather, freedom from the movement of game, the growth of plants, freedom from control from mendacious popes and kings, freedom from ideology, freedom from want. This idea of freeing ourselves has become the compass of the human journey.

Terence McKenna

• Growth
• Journey
• Moon
• Plant
• Ideology
• Compass
• Drought

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Quotes to Explore

• Women I admired growing up - Debra Winger, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep - were all beautiful and thin, but not too thin. There are a lot of actresses who are unhealthy-skinny - much, much too skinny. You can't Pilates to that.

  

  Zooey Deschanel
  • Up
  • Women
  • Beautiful

• In the Seventies, a lot of executions via electric chair failed because of technical problems. Seed tells the true story of someone who survived and sought revenge. They buried him alive to make it seem he was dead.

  

  Uwe Boll
  • True
  • Problems
  • Revenge

• Congress is attempting to eviscerate women's health care. Like many women across America, I am outraged.

  

  Felicity Huffman
  • Women
  • Health
  • Congress

• If I sit down with an electric guitar, what's going to come out are Sabbath/Zeppelin type riffs, but if I'm sitting behind a piano late at night, I might write something like 'Desperado.' You're not going to write 'Desperado' between a wall of Marshalls and thumping, crushing volume.

  

  Zakk Wylde Black Label Society
  • Night
  • Wall
  • Write

• Abstract anger is great for rhetorical carrying on. You can go on endlessly about the post office, but it doesn't mean you're mad at your mailman.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Great
  • You
  • Mad

• The strips about the military do seem to provoke moving and thoughtful responses. It's nice when the strip resonates, but more importantly, I need to know when I'm getting something wrong. The last thing I want to do is contribute to the suffering that wounded warriors already endure.

  

  Garry Trudeau
  • Want
  • Nice
  • Moving

• Some journalists are pestier than others, so I find out where the pests are. I am careful with my actors and actresses. I come back and tell them, 'Watch out for this one or that one.' People are surprised I do that. But I watch out for them even after the movie is over.

  

  Garry Marshall
  • Movie
  • Actors
  • Careful

• I was raised thinking that the world would end in 1975 - that Armageddon would come when I was 18 years old.

  

  Faye Resnick
  • World
  • Thinking
  • End

• A planet of playthingsWe dance on the strings of powers we cannot perceiveThe stars aren't aligned or the gods are malignedBlame is better to give than receive - Freewill (1980)

  

  Neil Peart Rush
  • Dance

• The more original a discovery the more obvious it seems afterwards.

  

  Arthur Koestler

• After 'The Real Thing,' I thought about giving up acting because it's difficult to have a rich life outside your work when you're an actress, a private life that can survive being picked up and put down. That's what I thought, anyway.

  

  Jennifer Ehle
  • Life
  • Up
  • Work

• When I was a kid, my dad used to take me out to the race track, and so many formative experiences have to do with associations like that.

  

  David Milch
  • Dad

• From an animation perspective, it doesn't get better than Pixar. You're working so much in the blind because the huge circle of collaborators that's required to pull off a film like this means that you are just one small arc in that large circle. The level of trust that you have to give into is significant.

  

  Jeffrey Wright
  • Small
  • Trust
  • Perspective

• Empathy probably started out as a mechanism to improve maternal care. Mammalian mothers who were attentive to their young's needs were more likely to rear successful offspring.

  

  Frans de Waal
  • Empathy

• I knew I wasn't going to write a record as soon as I got signed, because I hadn't had any life experiences. I was still at school, and I wasn't going to write about that.

  

  Eliot Sumner
  • Life
  • School

• The thing about the Internet is we take everything too far. Once something becomes 'popular' in our realm, it's everywhere, and I get sick of hearing about it quickly.

  

  Connor Franta
  • Popular
  • Sick

• As a kid, on the cotton fields, I had this tune in my head. I hummed it and sang it. It was the same melody as 'When A Man Loves A Woman.' I could never, ever forget it.

  

  Percy Sledge

• The liberal social experiment with our military continues. A same-sex marriage-like ceremony should not have occurred at Fort Polk, especially since the people of Louisiana have made it abundantly clear that our state does not recognize same-sex marriages or civil unions.

  

  John Fleming
  • People
  • Marriage
  • Military

• How small the vastest of human catastrophes may seem at a distance of a few million miles.

  

  H. G. Wells
  • May
  • Small
  • Distance

• Things past recoveryAre hardly cured with exclamations.

  

  Christopher Marlowe
  • Past

• We make butterflies by feeding caterpillars, not by trying to paste wings on them. Kids need to like themselves the way they are, and we can help them develop a positive self-image.

  

  Louise Hart
  • Trying
  • Kids
  • Help

• You know, a lot of people are just interested in, in building a company so they can make money and get out.

  

  Arthur Rock
  • People
  • Money

• I suspect our human 'thinking processes' often 'break down,' but you rarely notice anything's wrong, because your systems so quickly switch you to think in different ways, while the systems that failed are repaired or replaced.

  

  Marvin Minsky
  • Different
  • Thinking

• We want freedom. We want freedom from the constraints of the cycles of the sun and the moon. We want freedom from drought and weather, freedom from the movement of game, the growth of plants, freedom from control from mendacious popes and kings, freedom from ideology, freedom from want. This idea of freeing ourselves has become the compass of the human journey.

  

  Terence McKenna
  • Growth
  • Journey
  • Moon