I ask myself: what are my views on death, the next world, God? I look into my mind and discover I am too much of a mannikin to hav...e any. As for death, I am a little bit of trembling jelly of anticipation. I am prepared for anything, but I am the complete agnostic; I simply don't know. To have views, faith, beliefs, one needs a backbone. This great bully of a universe overwhelms me. The stars make me cower. I am intimidated by the immensity surrounding my own littleness. It is futile and presumptuous for me to opine anything about the next world. But I hope for something much freer and more satisfying after death, for emancipation of the spirit and above all for the obliteration of this puny self, this little, skulking, sharp-witted ferret.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The heart of the jealous knows the best and most satisfying love, that of the other's bed, where the rival perfects the lover's im...perfections.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... there were the hangers-on, students who became involved in the movement--any movement--because it was emotionally satisfying. ...At Chicago, there are few activities in which "everybody" participates, and the lack is especially felt by the younger undergraduates. A sit-in can fuse them into a hot, steamy mass of singing, changing, touching bodies. It encourages such communal acts as sharing a blanket and eating from the same jar of peanut butter. It is not surprising that they come out of it--a few days of it, anyway--feeling that they have had something akin to a religious experience.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most important is the recognition that stepparenting is different from primary parenting. It can be just as satisfying, it can be ...a reciprocally loving and caring relationship between parent and child, and it can provide some very good moments when it works, but it is different.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What would life be without art? Science prolongs life. To consist of what--eating, drinking, and sleeping? What is the good of liv...ing longer if it is only a matter of satisfying the requirements that sustain life? All this is nothing without the charm of art.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The goal in raising one's child is to enable him, first, to discover who he wants to be, and then to become a person who can be sa...tisfied with himself and his way of life. Eventually he ought to be able to do in his life whatever seems important, desirable, and worthwhile to him to do; to develop relations with other people that are constructive, satisfying, mutually enriching; and to bear up well under the stresses and hardships he will unavoidably encounter during his life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... not only have we exploited them physically and economically to bring ease to our bodies and our purses, but also we have explo...ited them emotionally to bring us many sublimated satisfactions. Our relationship with Negroes is a many-stringed instrument upon which we play melodies to replenish all the empty places in our hearts.... The parent-child relationship is almost consciously acted out, with the obedience, seeming respect, and acceptance by "our Nigras" going far toward soothing heartaches for the rebellion, arrogance, and rejection we must endure as our real children seize their own lives from us in adolescence. Even the reverse, the child-parent role, is sometimes filled, as we play the part of babyhood helplessness, satisfying immature longings to be waited on and taken care of.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan, Grayed in, and gray. "Dream" makes a giddy sound, not strong... Like "rent," "feeding a wife," "satisfying a man."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Reading any collection of a man's quotations is like eating the ingredients that go into a stew instead of cooking them together i...n the pot. You eat all the carrots, then all the potatoes, then the meat. You won't go away hungry, but it's not quite satisfying. Only a biography, or autobiography, gives you the hot meal.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A partner evoked by sophisticated electric brain stimulation could be as real and much more satisfying than the boy or girl next d...oor.... All the stars in Hollywood living or dead are there for your pleasure. Sated with superstars, you can lay Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Isis, Madame Pompadour, or Aphrodite. You can get fucked by Pan, Jesus Christ, Apollo or the Devil himself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »