H.M. > H.M.'s Quotes

“Is that a banana in your lunch box, or are you just pleased to see me?”
― H.M. Forester, The Dissidents

“There was a great joke that was forever doing the rounds in the jail and it was probably funny not because it had a humorous punchline but because it was so very true at a deep psychological level. Put anyone in that jail and soon enough they'd actually become a cruel, twisted, sadistic and heartless thug. And some of the prisoners were just as bad.”
― H.M. Forester, The Dissidents

“All you had to do was crack up and beg to see the Governor; grovel at his feet and admit to being a dissident; heartily repent your sins, and volunteer for elective brain surgery.”
― H.M. Forester, The Dissidents

“Their methods were especially crude and most of these former friends were now born again model citizens; lobotomized; or burnt out shells.”
― H.M. Forester, The Dissidents

“This too shall pass.”
― Hakim Sanai

“The worst of all was to be faced with the interrogation technique of Thirty Seconds. The interrogator would say something and you had to respond quickly, without once repeating yourself or using the personal pronoun. Very few dissidents could last the full thirty seconds, and a refusal to comply was taken as equal proof of dissidence.”
― H.M. Forester, The Dissidents

“The shadow of scepticism is dispelled in the light of real knowledge.”
― Etienne de L'Amour, The Lucian Uprising

“For the most part, what we think of as 'I' is nothing more than a whole heap of conditioning.”
― Etienne de L'Amour, Escape from the Shadowlands

“You could say, in a way, that I'm not actually a writer, though perhaps I might be called a recorder? ... I just happen to be one of those holding the pen, that's all.”
― Etienne de L'Amour, The Lucian Uprising

“Don't just stand there and nod. The mind observes and cogitates, the heart engages, and I would encourage you to engage with the process.”
― Etienne de L'Amour, The Host and the Guests

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
― Lao Tzu

“You know, we worry about the Bomb, a thought interceded, and yet just look around: there are millions of people out there, just like you and me, with their thumb on the self-destruct button.”
― Etienne de L'Amour, Thank You, I Understand

“He had been diagnosed as suffering from atypical schizophrenia. Lord, how he hated that awful-sounding label. It conjured up visions of some deranged maniac escaped from a secure mental hospital.”
― Etienne de L'Amour, Thank You, I Understand

“In the age of information, ignorance is a choice.”
― Donny Miller

“It is the message, not the man, which is important to the Sufis.”
― Idries Shah, The Sufis

“The credo of Asclepian or brain-oriented healing is 'don't just sit there, do something.' [...] The credo of Hygeian or heart-oriented healing is 'don't just do something, sit there.”
― Paul P. Pearsall, The Heart's Code: Tapping the Wisdom and Power of Our Heart Energy

“Inspiration can be a wonderful thing, but it can also be quite fickle ... If you want to be able to call on inspiration reliably then you need to work on it with regularity. Someone once said that if you only go out with a bucket to collect water when it's raining, sometimes you'll get water. But if you go out with your bucket every day, even when it's not raining, sometimes you'll catch unexpected rain. And also, a strange thing may happen: that the very act of going out with your bucket may actually provoke such rain.”
― Etienne de L'Amour, Time and Time Again

“Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“Yes, we are in a real pickle. Welcome to the pan-galactic insane asylum.”
― H.M. Forester, Game of Aeons

“There comes a point when you stop thinking of you playing the game, and you simply become a part of – and merge into – and become lost in – the game.”
― H.M. Forester, Game of Aeons

“Of course the reason that the Authorities have banned the stuff is not so much the detrimental effect on one's health, however genuine that might be, but rather that those who regularly partake in the illicit herb tend to lose all interest in playing the game by other people's rules. And that is in direct contravention of the Commandments, the first of which is: Thou shalt play the Game by the rules; the second being: Thou shalt not drop out of the Game.”
― H.M. Forester, Game of Aeons

“Maybe like the never-ending stories within stories of the One Thousand and One Nights, life is dream within dream all the way through?”
― H.M. Forester, Game of Aeons

“An angry man will find himself in an angry world, and a swindler will find himself in a world of thieves whom he dare not trust. Like attracts and mirrors like.”
― H.M. Forester, Game of Aeons

“There is no such thing as 'just one last cigarette' – except the last cigarette that you've already had.”
― H.M. Forester, Game of Aeons

“Smoking is suicide by instalments.”
― H.M. Forester, Game of Aeons

“Sorcery rules the world. Of course, most don't call it sorcery; indeed, many would be horrified by such a notion.”
― H.M. Forester, Game of Aeons

“There are universal laws at work, even here. The Law of Attraction; the Law of Correspondence; and the Law of Karma. That is: like attracts like; as within, so without; and what goes around comes around.”
― H.M. Forester, Game of Aeons

“There really is more to this world than meets the casual or untutored eye.”
― H.M. Forester, Game of Aeons

“I was becoming addicted to Bombay. There was squalor and poverty, but I had begun to realise my good fortune and would never again forget it.”
― Tahir Shah, Beyond the Devil's Teeth : Journeys in Gondwanaland

“Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: 'You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.”
― Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook