Jared Marks

“That is one reason why shipwreck divers don’t spend hours working underwater; the decompression time for a two-hour dive might be as long as nine hours.”
― Robert Kurson, Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II

“Every conurb, my guide answered, has a chemical toilet where the city’s unwanted human waste disintegrates quietly, but not quite invisibly. It motivates the downstrata: “Work, spend, work,” say slums like Huamdonggil, “or you, too, will end your life here.” Moreover, entrepreneurs take advantage of the legal vaccuum to erect ghoulish pleasurezones for upstrata bored with more respectable quarters. Huamdonggil can thus pay its way in taxes and bribes. MediCorp opens a weekly clinic for dying untermensch to xchange any healthy body parts they may have for a sac of euthanaze. OrganiCorp has a lucrative contract with the city to send in a daily platoon of immune-genomed fabricants, similar to disastermen, to mop up the dead before the flies hatch.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“though in our age crimes are not committed by criminals conveniently at hand but by executive pens far beyond the mob’s reach,”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“Cowardice is nothing to do with it—suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what’s selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching. The only selfishness lies in ruining strangers’ days by forcing ’em to witness a grotesqueness.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas