All Quotes

"To me! To me!"

"The Manifestation of Nuit is at an end."

"I am alone. There is no God where I am."

"Now a curse upon Because and his kin!"

"May Because be accursed for ever!"

"...Wisdom says: be strong! Then canst thou bear more joy. Be not animal; refine thy rapture! If thou drink, drink by the eight and ninety rules of art: if thou love, exceed by delicacy; and if thou do aught joyous, let there be subtlety therein!"

"But exceed! exceed!"

"There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt."

"There is a splendour in my name hidden and glorious, as the sun of midnight is ever the son."

"The ending of the words is the Word Abrahadabra."

"The old spelling MAGICK has been adopted throughout in order to distinguish the Science of the Magi from all its counterfeits."

"This book is for ALL: for every man, woman, and child. My former work has been misunderstood, and its scope limited, by my use of technical terms. It has attracted only too many dilettanti and eccentrics, weaklings seeking in "Magic" an escape from reality. I myself was first consciously drawn to the subject in this way. And it has repelled only too many scientific and practical minds, such as I most designed to influence. But MAGICK is for ALL."

"In my third year at Cambridge, I devoted myself consciously to the Great Work, understanding thereby the Work of becoming a Spiritual Being, free from the constraints, accidents, and deceptions of material existence. I found myself at a loss for a name to designate my work, just as H. P. Blavatsky some years earlier. "Theosophy", "Spiritualism", "Occultism", "Mysticism", all involved undesirable connotations. I chose therefore the name. "MAGICK" as essentially the most sublime, and actually the most discredited, of all the available terms. I swore to rehabilitate MAGICK, to identify it with my own career; and to compel mankind to respect, love, and trust that which they scorned, hated and feared. I have kept my Word."

"I must make MAGICK the essential factor in the life of ALL. In presenting this book to the world, I must then explain and justify my position by formulating a definition of MAGICK and setting forth its main principles in such a way that ALL may understand instantly that their souls, their lives, in every relation with every other human being and every circumstance, depend upon MAGICK and the right comprehension and right application thereof."

"Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will. (Illustration: It is my Will to inform the World of certain facts within my knowledge. I therefore take "magical weapons", pen, ink, and paper; I write "incantations" — these sentences — in the "magical language" ie, that which is understood by the people I wish to instruct; I call forth "spirits", such as printers, publishers, booksellers and so forth and constrain them to convey my message to those people. The composition and distribution of this book is thus an act of Magick by which I cause Changes to take place in conformity with my Will.) In one sense Magick may be defined as the name given to Science by the vulgar."

"The essence of MAGICK is simple enough in all conscience. It is not otherwise with the art of government. The Aim is simply prosperity; but the theory is tangled, and the practice beset with briars. In the same way MAGICK is merely to be and to do. I should add: "to suffer". For Magick is the verb; and it is part of the Training to use the passive voice. This is, however, a matter of Initiation rather than of Magick in its ordinary sense. It is not my fault if being is baffling, and doing desperate!"

"There is a single main definition of the object of all magical Ritual. It is the uniting of the Microcosm with the Macrocosm. The Supreme and Complete Ritual is therefore the Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel; or, in the language of Mysticism, Union with God."

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and had better come first. Purity means singleness. God is one. The Wand is not a Wand if it has something sticking to it which is not an essential part of itself. If you wish to invoke Venus, you do not succeed if there are traces of Saturn mixed up with it."

"The first task of the Magician in every ceremony is therefore to render his Circle absolutely impregnable."

"“The Devil” is, historically, the God of any people that one personally dislikes. This has led to so much confusion of thought that THE BEAST 666 has preferred to let names stand as they are, and to proclaim simply that AIWAZ, the solar-phallic-hermetic “Lucifer,” is His own Holy Guardian Angel, and “The Devil” SATAN or HADIT, the Supreme Soul behind RA-HOOR-KHUIT the Sun, the Lord of our particular unit of the Starry Universe. This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade “Know Thyself!” and taught Initiation. He is “the Devil” of the Book of Thoth, and His emblem is BAPHOMET, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of arcane perfection."

"Thou spiritual Sun! Satan, Thou Eye, Thou Lust! Cry aloud! Cry aloud! Whirl the Wheel, O my Father, O Satan, O Sun! Thou, the Saviour! Silence! Give me Thy Secret! Give me suck, Thou Phallus, Thou Sun! Satan, thou Eye, thou Lust! Satan, thou Eye, thou Lust! Satan, thou Eye, thou Lust! Thou self-caused, self-determined, exalted, Most High!"

"Now this word SABAF, being by number Three score and Ten, is a name of Ayin, the Eye, and the Devil our Lord, and the Goat of Mendes. He is the Lord of the Sabbath of the Adepts, and is Satan, therefore also the Sun, whose number of Magick is 666, the seal of His servant the BEAST."

"Acts which are essentially dishonourable must not be done; they would be justified only by calm contemplation of their correctness in abstract cases."

"Love is a virtue; it grows stronger and purer and less selfish by applying it to what it loathes; but theft is a vice involving the slave-idea that one's neighbor is superior to oneself."

"Crime, folly, sickness and all phenomena must be contemplated with complete freedom from fear aversion or shame. Otherwise we shall fail to see accurately, and interpret intelligently; in which case we shall be unable to outwit and outfight them."

"It has always been fatal when somebody finds out too much too suddenly. If John Huss had cackled more like a hen, he might have survived Michaelmas, and been esteemed for his eggs. The last fifty years have laid the axe of analysis to the root of every axiom; they are triflers who content themselves with lopping the blossoming twigs of our beliefs, or the boughs of our intellectual instruments. We can no longer assert any single proposition, unless we guard ourselves by enumerating countless conditions which must be assumed."

"The Magician must be wary in his use of his powers; he must make every act not only accord with his Will, but with the properties of his position at the time. It might be my Will to reach the foot of a cliff; but the easiest way — also the speediest, most direct least obstructed, the way of minimum effort — would be simply to jump. I should have destroyed my Will in the act of fulfilling it, or what I mistook for it; for the True Will has no goal; its nature being To Go."

"A parabola is bound by one law which fixes its relations with two straight lines at every point; yet it has no end short of infinity, and it continually changes its direction. The Initiate who is aware Who he is can always check is conduct by reference to the determinants of his curve, and calculate his past, his future, his bearings, and his proper course at any assigned moment; he can even comprehend himself as a simple idea."

"His own infinity becomes zero in relation to that of the least fragment of the solid. He hardly exists at all. Trillions multiplies by trillions of trillions of such as he could not cross the frontier even of breadth, the idea which he came to guess at only because he felt himself bound by some mysterious power."

"His first conception must evidently be a frantic spasm, formless, insane, not to be classed as an articulate thought. Yet, if he develops the faculties of his mind, the more he knows of it the more he sees that its nature is identical with his own whenever comparison is possible. The True Will is thus both determined by its equations, and free because those equation are simply its own name, spelt out fully. His sense of being under bondage comes from his inability to read it; his sense that evil exists to thwart him arises when he begins to learn to read, reads wrong, and is obstinate that his error is an improvement."

"We know one thing only. Absolute existence, absolute motion, absolute direction, absolute simultaneity, absolute truth, all such ideas: they have not, and never can have, any real meaning. If a man in delirium tremens fell into the Hudson River, he might remember the proverb and clutch at an imaginary straw. Words such as "truth" are like that straw. Confusion of thought is concealed, and its impotence denied, by the invention. This paragraph opened with "We know": yet, questioned, "we" make haste to deny the possibility of possessing, or even of defining, knowledge. What could be more certain to a parabola-philosopher that he could be approached in two ways, and two only? It would be indeed little less that the whole body of his knowledge, implied in the theory of his definition of himself, and confirmed by every single experience. He could receive impressions only be meeting A, or being caught up by B. Yet he would be wrong in an infinite number of ways. There are therefore Aleph-Zero possibilities that at any moment a man may find himself totally transformed. And it may be that our present dazzled bewilderment is due to our recognition of the existence of a new dimension of thought, which seems so "inscrutably infinite" and "absurd" and "immoral," etc. — because we have not studied it long enough to appreciate that its laws are identical with our own, though extended to new conceptions."

"The discovery of radioactivity created a momentary chaos in chemistry and physics; but it soon led to a fuller interpretation of the old ideas. It dispersed many difficulties, harmonized many discords, and — yea, more! It shewed the substance of Universe as a simplicity of Light and Life, manners to compose atoms, themselves capable of deeper self-realization through fresh complexities and organizations, each with its own peculiar powers and pleasures, each pursuing its path through the world where all things are possible."

"The Inmost is one with the Inmost; yet the form of the One is not the form of the other; intimacy exacts fitness. He therefore who liveth by air, let him not be bold to breathe water. But mastery cometh by measure: to him who with labour, courage, and caution giveth his life to understand all that doth encompass him, and to prevail against it, shall be increase. "The word of Sin is Restriction": seek therefore Righteousness, enquiring into Iniquity, and fortify thyself to overcome it."

"In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them."

"I think the hard thing about this job [stand-up] — I mean, I think this part is great — but that the traveling is y'know, 'cause — 'cause I'm gone a lot from home and this time I'm out for three-and-a-half weeks without going home, and that's hard, to be gone three-and-a-half weeks 'cause then I have to ask my friends, "Would you mind going to the house and watering the plants, and turn some lights on and make it look like somebody's home, and make sure that the mobile over the crib isn't tangled or the baby's gonna get bored...""

"Don't you hate when people are late to work? And they always have the worst excuses. "Oh, I'm sorry I'm late, traffic." "Traffic, huh? How do you think I got here; helicoptered in?!""

"I'm a — I'm a, um, a godmother which is just, that's fun to be a godmother, she is so precious, she's the light of my life, she's two... or five or something, and she's, uh... I don't know, I've never seen her — the pictures are precious, she just seems so, y'know... She lives clear across town, I don't have that kind of time, but, um... Well, I send money and stuff, it's not like I don't have a connection...."

"I don't want to get the same looks I give people when they get on a plane holding a baby: "That's a cute baby, just keep walking, keep walking, keep going, keep going....""

"If we don't want to define ourselves by things as superficial as our appearances, we're stuck with the revolting alternative of being judged by our actions, by what we do."

"I mean, I feel like I'm in a unique position as host, because think about it: What would bug the Taliban more than seeing a strange woman in a suit surrounded by Jews?"

"Yes, we're lazy. Yet we also can't seem to sit still. So we've started making things like GO-GURT. That's yogurt for people on the go. Let me ask you, was there a big mobility problem with yogurt before? How time-consuming was it, really? [pretending to be on the phone:] "Hello?...Oh, hi, Tom...oh, I've been dying to see that movie...Umm, no...I just opened up some yogurt...Yeah, I'm in for the night...No, not even later-it's the kind with fruit on the bottom. Well, have fun. Thanks anyway.""

"Now we have hands-free phones, so you can focus on the thing you're really supposed to be doing ... chances are, if you need both of your hands to do something, your brain should be in on it too."

"I have a terrible problem with procrastination... a friend told me, "Well, you should go to therapy." And I thought about it, but then I said, "Wait a minute. Why should I pay a stranger to listen to me talk when I can get strangers to pay to listen to me talk?" And that's when I got the idea of touring."

"With all of our differences, we [members of the audience] all have one thing in common, we're all strange. Now there are people out there [in audience] going “Do they think we’re strange because we’re here? Do we look gay? I told you this would happen. We’re not going to understand a word of this.” Seriously, though, if you're here you're probably strange. I mean, you have tendencies, you've thought about it. Now there are people [in audience] going “I have thought about it. Does that mean I'm strange? I'm not strange. Is that how they get us?”"

"Procrastinate now, don't put it off."

"Let's say, for instance, I'm out of cheese. And then I'll think, oh, but what if I go to the store and they're out of cheese? I'd be like, “How can you be out of cheese?” “What do you mean ‘How can we be out of cheese?’ You're out of cheese. People run out of cheese.” Then I’d be like, “Yeah, but you’re a store. You should have cheese stocked up in the back for people like me coming in looking for cheese.” And that's when they send the manager over, who thinks he's so cool for being the manager ‘cause his picture’s framed in the front of the store ‘cause he’s the manager, you know. And he’d be like, "What seems to be the problem, ma'am?" Which to me is so condescending, like “little lady.” I'd be like, “The little lady’s problem.…” He'd be like, “Who’s the little lady?” I'd be like, “Shut up and listen to me. You’re out of cheese and I want some.” And, he's like, “Well, how about some cottage cheese?' Like he’s going to negotiate the situation, he’s a diplomat because he’s the manager. And I’d be like, “I don’t want cottage cheese; I want cheddar cheese. Sharp cheddar cheese is what I came in for. Sharp cheddar cheese and cottage cheese are not the same things. Just ‘cause they have the name cheese in the title doesn't make it a cheese at all. That’d be like going into a musical instrument store and saying ‘I’d like to buy a trumpet,’ and them saying 'I'm sorry, we're all out of trumpets, but would you like a shoehorn?’ See, that’s not the same thing, is it, Mr. Manager?” (‘Thank you for the shoe horn,’ you know.) And he starts getting all nervous and everything, because a crowd has formed and he starts feeling humiliated because they're all sitting around mumbling “What seems to be the problem?,' I don’t know, she wants some cheese.' And, so, um, he just slaps me right across the face. And, umm, so that’s when Skip, the part time guy who works there, who hates the manager ‘cause he thinks so cool for being the manager and treats Skip like junk because he’s just the part time guy. And Skip’s going to quit in the fall and go back to school anyway. He doesn’t even need the money; he’s from a wealthy family. He’s just doing it for the experience because his family wants him to work one summer. And, so anyway, so, he takes the hose, and he goes to spray the manager right in the eye, right, and so, but that’s when he’s leaning down to pick the cottage cheese, so he misses him and he gets this old woman who’s standing right behind him, and she’s there picking out an avocado, because the older you are the less you eat and she all she wants is the avocado. So she screams out, “my eye, I’ve been sprayed in the eye with a produce hose.” And so then that's when her nephew who's visiting from Austin Texas is two aisles over buying tortilla chips because he thinks they're going to have guacamole. Little does he know it's one avocado. And so, he starts running “I’ll help you, aunt so and so,” running, and then when he's running down the aisle when he slips on some water from the produce hose, breaks his leg, breaks his arm, bruises two ribs right there... gets a stitch put in his cheekbone, just one, but still, it's a stitch. Chaos breaks out and it's all over Hard Copy and Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood... "Lesbian Demands Cheese, Causes Riot." And I'm like, “I didn’t even want the cheese.” You know?"

"What could be going so wrong that they need to check on you that often....'My bra's in my butt!!'....'Rachel' (mouths pointing to her butt 'My bra's in my butt' and again 'My bra's in my butt' shakes head no and air spells out B-U-T-T and then motions her to come here). I'd like to see how far they'd go to help you when you tell them your bra's in your butt.' 'Oh my, it's in the butt...do you need a different size or color? I don't know what to do about the bra in the butt. I'll get the manager I don't know."

"They say you just stand over there, he'll say thank you and you walk back off and that's what I thought was gonna happen, but in my head, I had for five or six years known that he was gonna call me over."

"I'm a godmother, that's a great thing to be, a godmother. She calls me god for short, that's cute, I taught her that."

"Sometimes when I am driving I get so angry at inconsiderate drivers that I want to scream at them. But then I remember how insignificant that is, and I thank gosh that I have a car and my health and gas. That was phrased wrong — normally you wouldn't say, thank gosh I have gas."