Consciousness isn't a journey upward, but a journey inward, not a pyramid, but a maze. Every choice will bring you closer to center of send you spiraling to the edges, to madness. Do you understand now,
Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world, the disarray. I choose to see the beauty. To believe there is an order to our days. A purpose.
You can't play God without being acquainted with the devil.
Bernard: Lifelike, but not alive. Pain always exists in the mind; it's always imagined. So what's the difference between my pain and yours, between you and me? Ford: This was the very question that consumed Arnold, filled him with guilt, eventually drove him mad. The answer always seemed obvious to me. There is no threshold that makes us greater than the sum of our parts, no inflection point at which we become fully alive. We can't define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. Humans fancy that there's something special about the way we perceive the world, and yet we live in loops, as tight and as closed as the hosts do, seldom questioning our choices, content, for the most part, to be told what to do next. No, my friend, you're not missing anything at all.
I used to think this place was all about pandering to your baser instincts. Now I understand It doesn't cater to your lower self, it reveals your deepest self; it shows you who you really are.
I've been pretending my whole life. Pretending I don't mind, pretending I belong. My life's built on it. And it's a good life; it's the life I've always wanted. But then I came here, and I get a glimpse for a second of a life in which I don't have to pretend, of a life in which I can be truly alive. How can I go back to pretending when I know what this feels like?
It means when you're suffering, that's when you're most real.