Robert M. Pirsig

“When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.”

“If a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory.”

“Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the psychic predecessor of all real understanding.”

“An experiment is never a failure solely because it fails to achieve predicted results.”

“The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test.”

“The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.”

“The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands.”

“Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive.”

“The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself.”

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

“To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top.”

“We’re in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness...”

“In a car you're always in a compartment, and... you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV.”

“Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions.”

“Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions.”

“Is it hard? Not if you have the right attitudes. It's having the right attitudes that's hard.”

“The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans. The present is our only reality.”

“My personal feeling is that this is how any further improvement of the world will be done: by individuals making Quality decisions and that's all.”

“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No, you are dedicated to something that is analytically flawed but emotionally right.”

“But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government... because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes.”