“The ultimate goal in the pursuit of excellence is enlightenment.”

Unpublished and Selected Writings

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Robert M. Pirsig wrote this unpublished line in 1962 while a patient at Downey Veteran Administration Hospital in Illinois, where he was admitted as a psychiatric patient.

More than a decade before the release of the book that would make him famous, Pirsig had already caught hold of the central theme that would animate Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: Quality, a concept loosely likened to “excellence,” “rightness,” or “fitness” that Pirsig saw as kindred to the Buddhist ideas of “Dharma” or the “Tao.” As he later wrote in Zen, “Quality is Buddha.”

Though he was hounded by fans who considered him a guru, the famously private Pirsig only published two books and consented to few interviews and almost no public appearances in later decades. Yet he wrote and thought almost continually, refining his “Metaphysics of Quality” until his death in 2017.

Now for the first time, readers will be granted access to five decades of Pirsig’s personal writings in this posthumous collection that illuminates his thinking to an unprecedented degree. Skillfully edited and introduced by Wendy Pirsig, Robert’s wife of over forty years, the collection includes previously unpublished texts, speeches, letters, interviews, and private notes (including from Pirsig’s time in the mental hospital), as well as key excerpts from Zen and the Art of the Motorcycle Maintenance and his second book, Lila.

About the Author

Robert M. Pirsig (1928–2017) is the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which has sold more than five-million copies since its publication in 1974, and Lila, a finalist for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He graduated from the University of Minnesota (B.A., 1950; M.A., 1958) and also attended Benares Hindu University in India, where he studied Eastern philosophy, and the University of Chicago, where he pursued a PhD in philosophy. Pirsig’s papers have been acquired by Harvard University and his motorcycle resides in the Smithsonian Institution.

Wendy K. Pirsig is an archivist who lives in New England. She was married to Robert M. Pirsig from 1978 until his passing.

Review

"On Quality, a collection of Pirsig’s speeches, fiction, letters, and musings ... reads like a notebook from a life spent pondering: What does 'quality' mean? Why are some things better than others? What is it about humans that causes us to recognize the difference?" — The New Yorker