The only job security you have today os your commitment to continuous personal improvement.
Leary can get a part of my mind that's kind of rusted shut grinding again, just by being around him and talking.
This world belongs to the strong, my friend! The ritual of our existence is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak. We must face up to this. No more than right that it should be this way. We must learn to accept it as a law of the natural world. The rabbits accept their role in the ritual and recognize the wolf as the strong. In defense, the rabbit becomes sly and frightened and elusive and he digs holes and hides when the wolf is about. And he endures, he goes on. He knows his place. He most certainly doesn't challenge the wolf to combat. Now, would that be wise? Would it?
We'd just shared the last beer and slung the empty can out the window at a stop sign and were just waiting back to get the feel of the day, swimming in that kind of tasty drowsiness that comes over you after a day of going hard at something you enjoy doing -- half sunburned and half drunk and keeping awake only because you wanted to savor the taste as long as you could.
All that five thousand kids lived in those five thousand houses, owned by guys that got off the train. The houses looked so much alike that, time and time again, the kids went home by mistake to different houses and different families. Nobody ever noticed.
It's time to move on to the next step in the psychedelic revolution. We've reached a certain point, but we're not moving any more.
What the Chronics are - or most of us - are machines with flaws inside that can't be repaired, flaws born in, or flaws beat in over so many years of the guy running head-on into solid things that by the time the hospital found him he was bleeding rust in some vacant lot.
I was talking to my friend and he said his girlfriend was mad at him. I said, "What happened?" He goes: "Well, I guess I, uh. . . I guess I said something, and, uh. . . and then she got her feelings hurt. " That's a weird way to phrase it: "She got her feelings hurt. I said something, and then she. . . " Could you more remove yourself from responsibility? "She got her feelings hurt. " It's like saying, "Yeah, I shot this guy in the face, and then I guess he got himself murdered. I don't know what happened. He leaned into it. "
I phoned Joe Roth, who was head of the studio at the time, and told him how beautiful the film was, and that I was fully ready to support it, that Michael's work was wonderful and I imagined that Daniel would feel the same. He listened quietly and read between the lines.
This notion that I was somehow special and deserving of a more involved education was wrong. I was smart at taking tests, but I knew how smart some of my friends were; they were just smart in different ways.
I've been very fortunateit's just been an amazing piece of luck. I haven't had to suffer for my art but I've suffered enough inside to hopefully be called an artist.