Poshlost

“Whereas I think: I’m lying here in a haystack... The tiny space I occupy is so infinitesimal in comparison with the rest of space, which I don’t occupy and which has no relation to me. And the period of time in which I’m fated to live is so insignificant beside the eternity in which I haven’t existed and won’t exist... And yet in this atom, this mathematical point, blood is circulating, a brain is working, desiring something... What chaos! What a farce!”
― Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, Fathers and Sons

“In art as in lovemaking, heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill, but what you want is passionate virtuosity.”
― John Barth

“Mediocrity is contextual.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

“ ... as long as American life was something to be escaped from, the cartel would always be assured a bottomless pool of new customers.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice