“Unusual behavior tends to produce estrangement in others which tends to further the unusual behavior and thus the estrangement in self-stoking cycles until some sort of climax is reached.” — Robert Pirsig Copy Share Image
“I like the word ‘gumption’ because it’s so homely and so forlorn and so out of style it looks as if it needs a… — Robert Pirsig Copy Share Image
“He felt that institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than… — Robert Pirsig Copy Share Image
“If you eliminate suffering from this world you eliminate life. There's no evolution. Those species that don't suffer don't survive. Sometimes the insane and… — Robert Pirsig Copy Share Image
“At first he found it amusing. He coined a law intended to have the humor of a Parkinson’s law that "The number of rational… — Robert Pirsig Copy Share Image
“For three days and three nights, Phædrus stares at the wall of the bedroom, his thoughts moving neither forward nor backward, staying only at… — Robert Pirsig Copy Share Image
“Unusual behavior tends to produce estrangement in others which tends to further the unusual behavior and thus the estrangement in self-stoking cycles until some… — Robert Pirsig Copy Share Image
“It made the kids at camp much more enthusiastic and cooperative when they had ego goals to fulfill, I'm sure, but ultimately that kind… — Robert Pirsig Copy Share Image
“Morals can't function normally because morals have been declared intellectually illegal by the subject object metaphysics that dominates present social thought” — Robert Pirsig Copy Share Image
“We see much more of this loneliness now. It's paradoxical that that where people are the most closely crowded in the big coastal cities… — Robert Pirsig Copy Share Image
“...there is a sense of defeat at having come so far to be stopped by a mystery that can never be fathomed.” — Robert Pirsig Copy Share Image
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity; when many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. - Robert… — Robert Pirsig Copy Share Image
“The result is rather typical of modern technology, an overall dullness of appearance so depressing that it must be overlaid with a veneer of… — Robert Pirsig Copy Share Image
