Pluto

“Icy streams of neon light roar through ice-cream parlors, through dancehalls. Clusters of humming light dangle from whip-shaped lampposts over miniature golf courses. A flickering torrent of coldness. People HER age, enjoying the lovely peace and quiet of habit, loll around kidneyshaped tables. Tall glasses, containing long spoons, look like cool blossoms: brown, yellow, pink; chocolate, vanilla, raspberry. The colorful, steaming scoops are tinted an almost uniform gray by the ceiling lights. Glittering scoopers wait in containers of water, with threads of ice cream floating on the surface. In the casualness of fun, which doesn't have to keep proving itself, the young silhouettes relax in front of their ice-cream towers. Tiny, gaudy umbrellas stick out of the glasses, concealing the harsh detritus of maraschino cherries, pineapple chunks, chocolate chips. The loungers incessantly poke pieces of coldness into their own ice caves, cold to cold; or else they heedlessly let the good stuff melt, while telling one another things that are more important than the icy delight.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“The man of knowledge in our time is bowed down under a burden he never imagined he would ever have: the overproduction of truth that cannot be consumed.”
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

“And the rest is rust and stardust.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“The man of knowledge in our time is bowed down under a burden he never imagined he would ever
have: the overproduction of truth that cannot be
consumed. For centuries man lived in the belief that truth was slim and elusive and that once he found it the troubles of mankind would be over. And here we
are in the closing decades of the 20th century, choking on truth...”
― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death