

“He thought that God’s goodness appeared in strange places. Dont close your eyes.”
― The Passenger
― The Passenger

“In one of my prewar lectures—they were devilishly daring!—I developed this excerpt from Goethe into the elegiac idea that there is no such thing as happiness, that it is either unattainable or illusory. Then, suddenly, a note was passed to me, a page torn out of a miniature notebook—squared paper: “ ‘But I’m in love—and I am happy! What do you say to that?’ ” “What did you say?” “What can anybody say?”
― In the First Circle
― In the First Circle

“So how bad is the world?
How bad. The world's truth constitutes a /vision so terrifying as to beggar the prophecies of the bleakest seer who ever walked it. Once you accept that then the idea that all of this will one day be ground to powder and blown into the void becomes not a prophecy but a promise. So allow me in turn to ask you this question: When we and all our works are gone together with every memory of them and every machine in which such memory could be encoded and stored and the Earth is not even a cinder, for whom then will this be a tragedy? Where would such a being be found? And by whom?
p.377”
― The Passenger
How bad. The world's truth constitutes a /vision so terrifying as to beggar the prophecies of the bleakest seer who ever walked it. Once you accept that then the idea that all of this will one day be ground to powder and blown into the void becomes not a prophecy but a promise. So allow me in turn to ask you this question: When we and all our works are gone together with every memory of them and every machine in which such memory could be encoded and stored and the Earth is not even a cinder, for whom then will this be a tragedy? Where would such a being be found? And by whom?
p.377”
― The Passenger

“In that mycoidal phantom blooming in the dawn like an evil lotus and in the melting of solids not heretofore known to do so stood a truth that would silence poetry for a thousand years.”
― The Passenger
― The Passenger

“The world says: "You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.”
― The Brothers Karamazov
― The Brothers Karamazov
Andrew’s 2024 Year in Books
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