Robert Pirsig

Quotes from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

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The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.

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When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process. (p. 70)

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He was insane. And when you look directly at an insane man all you see is a reflection of your own knowledge that he's insane, which is not to see him at all. To see him you must see what he saw and when you are trying to see the vision of an insane man, an oblique route is the only way to come at it. Otherwise your own opinions block the way. (p 71)

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. . . the knack is almost purely a process of reason, and most of the troubles are caused by what old time radio men called a "short between the earphones," failures to use the head properly. (p 84)

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But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. There's so much talk about the system. And so little understanding. (p 88)

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The real purpose of scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn't misled you into thinking you know something you don't actually know. There's not a mechanic or scientist or technician alive who hasn't suffered from that one so much that he's not instinctively on guard. That's the main reason why so much scientific and mechanical information sounds so dull and so cautious. If you get careless or go romanticizing scientific information, giving it a flourish here and there, Nature will soon make a complete fool out of you. It does it often enough anyway even when you don't give it opportunities. One must be extremely careful and rigidly logical when dealing with Nature: one logical slip and an entire scientific edifice comes tumbling down. One false deduction about the machine and you can get hung up indefinitely. (p 94)

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The causes of our current social crises, he would have said, is a genetic defect within the nature of reason itself. And until this genetic defect is cleared, the crises will continue. Our current modes of rationality are not moving society forward into a better world. They are taking it further and further from that better world. Since the Renaissance these modes have worked. As long as the need for food, clothing and shelter is dominant they will continue to work. But now that for huge masses of people these needs no longer overwhelm everything else, the whole structure of reason, handed down to us form ancient times, is no longer adequate. It begins to be seen for what it really is -- emotionally hollow, aesthetical meaningless and spiritually empty. That, today, is where it is at, and will continue to be at for a long time to come. (p 102)

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He felt that institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tend to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions. (p 106)

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You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religion faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt. (p 134)

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To the untrained eye ego-climbing and selfless climbing may appear identical. Both kinds of climbers place one foot in front of the other. Both breathe in a out at the same rate. Both stop when tired. Both go forward when rested. But what a difference! The ego-climber is like an instrument that's out of adjustment. He puts his foot down an instant too soon or too late. He's likely to miss a beautiful passage of sunlight through the trees. He goes on when the sloppiness of his step show he's tired. He rests at odd times. He looks up the trail trying to see what's ahead even when he knows what's ahead because he just looked a second before. He goes too fast or too slow for the conditions and when he talks his talk is forever about somewhere else, something else. He's here but he's not here. He rejects the here, he's unhappy with it, wants to be farther up the trail but when he gets there will be just as unhappy because then it will be "here". What he's looking for, what he wants, is all around him, but he doesn't want it because it is all around him. Every step's an effort, both physically and spiritually, because he imagines his goal to be external and distant. (pp 189-190)

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Strange feelings from the orange sunlight on this sandy dry county so far from home. . . Just an unexplained sort of sadness that comes each afternoon when the new day is gone forever and there's nothing left but increasing darkness. (p 268)

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That's the classical mind at work, runs fine inside but looks dingy on the surface. (p 285)

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The driving is different too. The cars seem to be moving at a steady maximum speed for in-town driving, as though they want to get somewhere, as though what's here right now is just something to get through. The drivers seem to be thinking about where they want to be rather than where they are.

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The explanation, I suppose, is that the physical distance between people has nothing to do with loneliness. It's psychic distance, and in Montana and Idaho the physical distances are big but the psychic distances between people are small, and here it's reversed. (p 322)

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It's the primary America we're in. . . There's this primary America of freeways and jet flights and TV and movie spectaculars. And people caught up in this primary America seem to go through huge portions of their lives without much consciousness of what's immediately around them. The media have convinced them that what's right around them is unimportant. And that's why they're lonely. You see it in their faces. First the little flicker of searching, and then when they look at you, you're just a kind of an object. you don't count. You're not what they're looking for. You're not on TV. (p 322)

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We always condemn most in others, he thought, that which we most fear in ourselves. (p 342)

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Degeneracy can be fun but it's hard to keep up as a serious lifetime occupation. (p 377)