Where there is official censorship it is a sign that speech is serious. Where there is none, it is pretty certain that the official spokesmen have al… - Paul Goodman

Can they solve the problem of the nagging unanswerable question of justification and vocation? Their principle is the traditional one of classical mysticism: by “experiences” (“kicks”) to transcend the nagged and nagging self altogether and get out of one’s skin, to where no questions are asked—nor is there any articulate speech to ask them in.

This I did with all my will and apparently indefatigably (but I will one day drop with weariness)—I invented a different practical world that made no sense and took the heart out of me. Instead of resigning, I reacted, in moments of despair, by thinking up something else, and behaving as if this more pleasing landscape might indeed come to be the case.

It is hard to grow up in a society in which one’s important problems are treated as nonexistent. It is impossible to belong to it, it is hard to fight to change it.