3 Quotes & Sayings By William Hirstein

William Hirstein (1920-2009) was a popular American novelist and screenwriter. He wrote hundreds of short stories and novels, the majority of which were published in pulp magazines during the 1950s and 1960s. His best-known novel is "The Boy Who Dared," which was made into a film starring Robert Wagner and Jane Fonda in 1966. At one time he was Hollywood's highest-paid screenwriter.

1
The conscious events that we are aware of are physical events in their own right, just as much as the brain events observed in the lab by researchers. If we allow the mental its own existence as a category disjoint from the physical, we will never be able to get it back in. William Hirstein
2
If you look at your average contemporary person, the potential for tragedy is immense. The people and things we love and value are strewn across the globe. Any number of health disasters can befall you or them. The truth is depressing. We are going to die, most likely after illness; all our friends will likewise die; we are tiny insignificant dots on a tiny planet. Perhaps with the advent of broad intelligence and foresight comes the need for confabulation and self-deception to keep depression and its consequent lethargy at bay. There needs to be a basic denial of our finitude and insignificance in the larger scene. It takes a certain amount of chutzpah just to get out of bed in the morning. William Hirstein