The Doors of Perception

We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. (12)

From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes. Most island universes are sufficiently like one another to permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or "feeling into." (13)

A rose is a rose is a rose. But these chair legs were chair legs were St. Michael and all the angels. (28)

However expressive, symbols can never be the things they stand for. (29)

"One ought to be able" I said, "to see these trousers as infinitely important and human beings as still more infinitely important." (35)

Vermeer never asked his girls to look like apples. On the contrary, he insisted on their being girls to the very limit--but always with the proviso that they refrain from behaving girlishly. (38-39)

All that the conscious ego can do is to formulate wishes, which are then carried out by forces which it controls very little and understands not at all. (52)

"If you started in the wrong way," I said in answer to the investigator's questions, "everything that happened would be a proof of the conspiracy against you. It would all be self-validating. You couldn't draw a breath without knowing it was part of the plot." (57)