A commune is a brotherhood of rebellious souls.

Bernie was more than a little annoyed when a neighbor telephoned at 3:00 a.m. and complained, “Your dog is barking so loudly that I can’t sleep!” The neighbor hung up before he could reply.

The following morning at 3:00 a.m. Bernie called his neighbor and said, “I don’t have a dog!”

This is your world – utterly insane! That’s why I say that unfortunately you have to be in it. Be, but don’t belong to it; keep yourself as much unimpressed, uninfluenced by others as possible. Keep your originality; don’t lose it in the crowd.

The young bride was inconsolable, in spite of the fact that her dead, seventy-five-year-old husband had left her ten million dollars in his will. Her friends tried to make her understand: “You are so young,” they said. “You have a great life ahead, and ten million dollars! He had to die sooner or later.”

“You don’t understand,” she sobbed. “He was the greatest lover. We lived next door to the church and he used to make love to me by the sound of the church bells – ding-dong, ding-dong. And he would be alive today if it wasn’t for that damn fire truck!”

That’s why I say: Don’t belong to this world. Be in it, but be alert that you don’t get lost in the madness that is all over the earth.

Old man Finkelstein, aged eighty-five, went to a sperm bank to make a deposit. The young woman at the reception was skeptical. “Are you sure that you want to do this?” she asked.

“Yes,” said old Finkelstein. “I feel it is my duty to give something from myself to the world.”

The woman gave him a jar and directed him to a room down the hall. When thirty minutes had passed and he did not return, the girl began to worry that he might have had a heart attack. But just then the old man came out of the room and approached the woman.

“Listen,” he said, “I tried it with one hand, then I tried it with two hands, then I got it up and hit it on the sink, then I ran warm water on it, then cold water over it, and I still can’t get the lid of the jar open!”