It is a pregnant complex, gleaming up from the unconscious, of mother-fixation, sexual desire, and fear. - Thomas Mann

Distance in a straight line has no mystery. The mystery is in the sphere.

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.

We come out of darkness and return to darkness, with some experiences in between. But we don’t experience the beginning and the end, birth and death. We are not subjectively aware of them, they exist only in the world of objective events — and that’s that.