Quotes by Sol Luckman

And then I found myself losing myself.

Jefferson Street at Halloween made a Grateful Dead concert look like a Quaker fish fry. I wanted to be the curious little cell that moves among all the other little cells and gets to know every last one of them.

We meandered through Billy’s ritzy neighborhood in the general direction of Jefferson Street. In the lamplight the houses looked identical, grand façade after grand façade of pale gray with black windows, as if for all their monumentality they were nothing but wallpaper, black-and-white prints, two-dimensional murals similar in their deceptive insubstantiality to the gossamer buildings of New Age City. I was struck by the idea that Billy and I, to the extent we existed only in our imaginations, were just as shallow, just as superficial—and equally susceptible to being erased without a trace.

Ever since learning I wasn’t the only unreal person in the world, I’d developed an annoying habit of studying people to determine their true ontological status. I studied people in class, the library, the cafeteria, my dorm, around campus, while running the Gargoyle Castle Loop. Now, under the influence of acid, I began to suspect everyone was unreal. That behind all the masks and makeup, the smiles and laughter, the quips and repartees, there was a good chance of finding absolutely nothing.

I felt exceedingly small, but also exceedingly large, and the things that had once seemed so important now appeared trifling. Actually, those things had never even existed. I’d imagined every last one of them. Nothing ever really existed. Somehow, just then, navigating that cosmic ocean of sky, this was everything I needed to know.

Finally, we entered Chetaube County, my imaginary birthplace, where the names of the little winding roads and minuscule mountain communities never failed to inspire me: Yardscrabble, Big Log, Upper, Middle and Lower Pigsty, Chicken Scratch, Cooterville, Felchville, Dust Rag, Dough Bag, Uranus Ridge, Big Bottom, Hooter Holler, Quickskillet, Buck Wallow, Possum Strut … We always say a picture speaks a thousand words, but isn’t the opposite equally true?

Science has its own versions of the fundamental duality at the heart of existence. The particle-wave duality, in which atomic components are simultaneously particles and waves, is a primary example. Not surprisingly, DNA has also been shown to possess a version of the particle-wave binarism.

Later, it would occur to me it's the emptiness we mistakenly call Innocence.

Many ancient traditions worldwide maintain that humans not only inherently possess the potential for fully incarnating light at the physiological level, but that some have already achieved it, and millions more will do so in the very era in which we live. The historical literature “suggests that there are unusual physical, as well as psychological, consequences in humans to the attainment of the exalted state of mind known as enlightenment,” writes biochemist Colm Kelleher. “These reported changes include, but are not limited to, sudden reversal of aging, emergence of a light body and observed bodily ascension.” While many of these descriptions associate the lightbody with death, Kelleher makes it clear that a number of reports indicate that “transformation of the body can happen independently of death.”

Home. The word circled comfortably in my mouth like bubble gum, swished around sweetly soft and satisfying. Home. Try saying it aloud to yourself. Home. Isn’t it like taking a bite of something lovely? If only we could eat words.