Quotes About Detachment

He felt nothing for them now, nothing but the merciless zero of indifference, not even the regret of a loss.

we do not care. We care for nothing on earth. We are tired.

She went on, protected from the world around her by a last armor: indifference.

A wall of the most effective soundproofing: indifference.

had stood there silently, watching, without interest or purpose, like a chemical compound on a photographic plate, absorbing visual shapes because they were there to be absorbed, but unable ever to form any estimate of the objects of her vision.

To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.--Dominique Francon

Well, it's like this: if you're forced into having sex with someone you dislike, you make your mind blank—you pretend to be somewhere else, you tend to forget your body, you hate your body. That's what we do here. We are constantly pretending to be somewhere else—we either plan it or dream it.

Much of my rebelliousness starts with indifference to what is urgently important to others.

The doctor's detachment is not a defense against excessive empathy, but a "downright negative" emotional stance

Whatever you want the most, it's going to be the worst thing for you.

It's a great freedom to give up on love, and get on with everything else.

No matter what happens on God's green earth, Father acts like it's a movie he's already seen and we're just dumb for not knowing how it comes out.

He returned a moment later, alone, and, after taking a moment to catch his breath, resumed his rightful place on the bench without looking at anyone else in the room. Everyone returned to what they were doing: his affiliates, because they didn't care; the civilians, because they were unnerved. It was as though nothing had happened, though the pervading silence indicated that indeed something had.

I told myself it was all right, I wasn't disappointed, it was better this way. I wondered in a detached way whether it was all part of some cosmic punishment for Crazy Jake, the blood brother I had killed in Vietnam. Or perhaps for the other things I've done. To be periodically tantalized by the hope of something real, something good, always knowing at the same time it was all going to turn to dust.

Seriously protecting yourself calls for the annihilation of ties with society, ties that most people need the way they need oxygen. You give up friends, family, romance. You walk through the world like a ghost, detached from the living around you. If you were to die in, say, a bus accident, you'd wind up buried in an obscure municipal graveyard, just another John Doe, no flowers, no mourners, hell, no mourning. It's natural, probably even desirable, to be afraid of all this.

The third floor was quieter still. For a few moments, I leaned against the railing surrounding the open center of the floor, gazing down at the band, at the patrons at the tables before the stage, and at the waiters crossing between, and felt an odd sadness descend, both remote and heavy, as though I was watching this lively scene not so much from on high but rather from an impossibly detached and alienated distance

Seriously protecting yourself calls for the annihilation of ties with society, ties that most people need the way they need oxygen.

If you get fired from your job, that's outside your control, so you shouldn't be personally invested in your job.

The Great Way is not difficult if you do not make distinctions. Only throw away likes and dislikes, and everything will be perfectly clear. So

So if you are thinking, words are very bad. But if you are not thinking, all words and all things that you can see or hear or smell or taste or touch will help you. So it is very important for you to cut off your thinking and your attachment to words.

Soen-sa said, The universe is infinite; all people are infinite. So the Bodhisattva's attachment is infinite. A Bodhisattva attachment is no attachment. No attachment is a Bodhisattva attachment.

When your enemy is in the process of destroying himself, stay out of the way.

Buddhist writings (including this book) can be likened to a raft. A raft is a very handy thing to carry you across the water, from one shore to another. But once you've reached the other shore, you no longer need the raft. Indeed, if you wish to continue your journey beyond the shore, you must leave the raft behind. Our problem is that we tend to fall in love with the raft.

Don't assume responsibility for his emotional wellbeing. Don't be so quick to bond. And don't feel sorry for him.