Cliff James Quotes & Sayings

One way or another, we spend our whole lives being conditioned into accepting some line or order, some position of domination or subjection. It's hard to unlearn such hierarchy, to undo such control. It's implicit. — Cliff James

Olympus is still a patriarchy. Zeus heads his royal household as jealously as Jehovah rules his harem of dull, harp-playing angels. Both are templates for order on earth, don't you think? — Cliff James

A metamorphosis had come over us. It was something internal, an electrical pulse in the brain, some slight variation in the aortic rhythm that had forever altered our states, transformed our external structures. We were not who we had been, nor yet what we would become. — Cliff James

Have you ever wondered why we bury and cremate our dead? Nothing to do with hygiene, it's just so we don't have to see the reality of death. You know, the Zoroastrians used to leave their dead in open places for the birds to eat. Now that's a far more honest way to go, don't you agree? Everyone can see what happens. It makes us live our lives more potently. That's how I want to go, at my end: openly. Not ashamed of death, but embracing it. — Cliff James

I will simply die, as you will simply die, when our hearts stop beating. And instead of the fires of Hell or the clouds of Heaven, there will be a chorus of hungry worms or fish, depending on how we go. Isn't that what really terrifies you most of all, why you force yourself against all reason to believe in such tales? It's because you're afraid of the nothingness at the end. You're ashamed of it. — Cliff James