Author: Emilie

Title: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Author: Robert M. Pirsig
# Pages: 404
Published: April 1974
Rating: 5 stars

I decided to make this my first read of the year after I had to put it aside a year or so ago. It is one of my brother’s favorites, and we have similar reading tastes, so I figured I had to give it another go.

Pirsig uses a first-person narrator to tell the story of a father and son and their summer motorcycle trip across the Northwestern United States. The father contemplates his relationship with his son while they drive, which leads him to a comparison of motorcycle maintenance and science, religion, and philosophy.

This is a brilliant book, one I will definitely read again. It not only made me want to get a motorcycle and take my own trip; it also made me want to learn more about philosophy and re-evaluate my own ideas about life.

Favorite Quotes:

We’re in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it’s all gone.

You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it’s going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.

The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.