“We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I want to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“Nobody knows who I am or what I do. Not even I.
Don Juan Matus
”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“You say you need help. Help for what? You have everything needed for the extravagant journey that is your life.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“For an instant I think I saw. I saw the loneliness of man as a gigantic wave which had been frozen in front of me, held back by the invisible wall of a metaphor.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“I have no routines or personal history. One day I found out that they were no longer necessary for me and, like drinking, I dropped them. One must have the desire to drop them and then one must proceed harmoniously to chop them off, little by little. If you have no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts. It is best to erase all personal history because that makes us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people. I have, little by little, created a fog around me and my life. And now nobody knows for sure who I am or what I do. Not even I. How can I know who I am, when I am all this?”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“To worry is to become accessible, unwittingly accessible. And once you worry you cling to anything out of desperation; and once you cling you are bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whoever or whatever you are clinging to.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“To seek the perfection of the warrior's spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, our manhood.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“A warrior must focus his attention on the link between himself and his death . . .. He must let each of his acts be his last battle on earth. Only under those conditions will his acts have their rightful power.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“A hunter knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again, so he doesn't worry. To worry is to become accessible, unwittingly accessible. And once you worry you cling to anything out of desperation; and once you cling you are bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whoever or whatever you are clinging to.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“You take yourself too seriously, " he said slowly. "You are too damn important in
your own mind. That must be changed! You are so goddamn important that you feel
justified to be annoyed with everything. You're so damn important that you can afford to
leave if things don't go your way. I suppose you think that shows you have character.
That's nonsense! You're weak, and conceited!" - Dom Juan”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“Охотник знает, что он заманит дичь в свои ловушки еще и еще, поэтому он не тревожится. Тревожиться, значит становиться доступным, безрассудно доступным. И как только ты начинаешь тревожиться, ты в отчаянии цепляешься за что-нибудь. А как только ты за что-нибудь уцепился, то ты уже обязан устать или утопить того или то, за что ты цепляешься.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“You take yourself too seriously, " he said slowly. "You are too damn important in your own mind. That must be changed! You are so goddamn important that you feel justified to be annoyed with everything. You're so damn important that you can afford to leave if things don't go your way. I suppose you think that shows you have character. That's nonsense! You're weak, and conceited!" - Dom Juan”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
“..there was no need to injure the shrubs, since we had already injured the quail.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from Journey to Ixtlan
Carlos Castaneda
Born place: in Cajamarca, Peru
Born date December 25, 1925
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“It’s so difficult for two shy people to manage.”
― J.D. Robb, quote from Vengeance in Death
“Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.”
― quote from The Dhammapada
“So...what are you working on now?"
“Right now, an essay about Don Quixote.”
“One of my favorite books.”
“Mine too.”
“What’s the gist?”
“It has to do with the authorship of the books.”
“Is there any question?”
“I mean the book inside the book Cervantes wrote, the one he imagined he was writing.”
“Ah.”
“Cervantes claims he is not the author, that the original text was in Arabic.”
“Right. It’s an attack on make-believe, so he must claim it was real.”
“Precisely. Therefore, the story has to be written by an eyewitness yet Cid Hamete Benengeli, the acknowledged author, never makes an appearance. So who is he? Sancho Panza is of course the witness – illiterate, but with a gift for language. He dictated the story to the barber and the priest, Don Quixote’s friends. They had the manuscript translated into Arabic. Cervantes found the translation and had it rendered back into Spanish. The idea was to hold up a mirror to Don Quixote’s madness so that when he finally read the book himself, he would see the error of his ways. But Don Quixote, in my view, was no mad. He only pretended to be. He engineered the collaboration, and the translation from Arabic back into Spanish. I like to imagine Cervantes hiring Don Quixote in disguise to decipher the story of Don Quixote.”
“But why did Quixote go to such lengths?”
“He wanted to test the gullibility of man. To what extent would people tolerate blasphemies, lies, and nonsense if they gave them amusement? The answer: to any extent. For the book is still amusing us today. That’s finally all anyone wants out of a book. To be amused.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“It was a long time since he'd done any actual clinical work, and obviously his sojourn among the academics at Saro University had attenuated the professional detachment that allows members of the healing arts to confront the ill without being overwhelmed by compassion and sorrow. He was surprised at that, how tenderhearted he seemed to have become, how thin-skinned.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Nightfall
“Men who have never had to fight love a weapon. They love to hold it in their hands, feel its balance and speculate on the damage they might do, were they called to do it.”
― M.D. Lachlan, quote from Wolfsangel
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