Quotes About Consciousness

Human consciousness is too vast to fit between the covers of a book, and every experience has too many facets to count.

In addition to remembering things that one does not know how one remembers, one would also appear to remember things that one has no idea how one knew to begin with.

I do not masturbate often. Though at times I do so almost without being aware of it, actually.

Even if I had not been thinking about it, for that matter, certainly I would have had to begin to do so when I typed those last few sentences.

There is no such thing as forgetting," he murmured.

Writing comes out of the rift between what we have experienced and the language we've been given to express it. We write to bridge this divide, to find word adequate to our sense of reality... Creative writing is the search for and creation of a language that will express what the writer unconsciously knows but does not yet have a language to express.

Does the protagonist deny the irreconcilable conflict? Does she lie about it- to herself and others? Does she make a choice between two irreconcilable desires? Then clearly her choice of one over the other reveals something essential about her that was not apparent at the beginning of the story. The protagonist-sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously- must reckon then with a new understanding of her character and who she really is and her place in and relationship to the world.

We know this world intimately and that is its uncanniness. We cannot bear our knowledge.

It makes far better sense to reshape ourselves to fit a finite planet than to attempt to reshape the planet to fit our infinite wants

To be is to be perceived

The inner-actions between human beings are determined by the configurations of the vibrational energies that their emotions are radiating into space. The energy of the vibration, and the thought form with which it is associated, create a readable record.

One of the laws of consciousness is: We are only subject to a negative thought or belief if we consciously say that it applies to us. We are free to choose not to buy into a negative belief system.

In repression, this happens unconsciously; in suppression, it happens consciously.

When we repress a feeling, it is because there is so much guilt and fear over the feeling that it is not even consciously felt at all. It becomes instantly thrust into the unconscious as soon as it threatens to emerge.

It is not thoughts or facts that are painful but the feelings that accompany them. Thoughts in and of themselves are painless, but not the feelings that underlie them!

Inside of us, but out of awareness, is the truth that "I already know everything I need to know.

Thus, the process is "to die before you die," as stated in many religious traditions. That is, once you face your certain death, that repressed fear of death no longer runs you. Nothing scares you anymore. Fear is a big stack, and at the bottom of that stack is the fear of physical death.

It is not thoughts or facts that are painful but the feelings that accompany them. Thoughts in and of themselves are painless, but not the feelings that underlie them! It is the accumulated pressure of feelings that causes thoughts.

You wouldn't use a hammer to open a can of soup. You can't use the intellect to apprehend spiritual reality.

I have so little control over the act of writing that it's all I can do to remain conscious. Actual formal considerations are almost beyond my capacity. Before I sat down and became a writer, before I began to do it habitually and for my living, there was a decades-long stretch when I was terrified that it would suck, so I didn't write. I think that marks a lot of people, a real terror at being bad at something, and unfortunately you are always bad before you can get a little better.

hatred and aggression—and carnivorous sexual intent—aren't our "dark" side. Our dark side is the side that denies its own existence.

I wanted to be perfect," he said over dinner. "I…need to be perfect." It's such a burden to place on yourself. Say you are perfect—who's going to recognize it? Few things are like the Olympics, where judges hold up score cards. How does one paint perfectly? Or lawyer perfectly? The key is to fill the space between your skill level and perfection with charm. That said, you can't do it consciously. Charm can't be constructed that way.

It bothered me that the bag bothered me more than head did, but what are you going to do? A person doesn't conciously choose what he focuses on. Those things choose you, and, once they do, nothing, it seems, can shake them.

If I'm walking down an American street and anyone darker than a peanut shell approaches, I'll say, Hello. This because, if I don't say it, he or she might think that I'm anxious. Which, of course, I must be, otherwise I'd walk by in silence, just as I do with my fellow Caucasians. Does this make me racist, or simply race conscious? Either way, I'm more afraid of conservatives than I am of black people.