So many revolutionaries are intellectuals, a class of people whose aspirations tend to run ahead of their capabilities. - William T. Vollmann

"Once again I choose to quote the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (If somebody were to ask why I believe that organization instead of one that made opposing claims, I suppose I would say: About scientific matters a scientist is more credible than a non-scientist. A large panel of peer-reviewed scientists, expressing a common judgment, with the caveats and qualifications denoting honesty, increases this credibility from the beginning, while I start by distrusting a lobbyist who was paid to say a certain thing. Scientists may be as corruptible as anybody else, but why was it that the regulated community, with all the money at its disposal, found so few individuals in lab coats who would oppose the climate change Cassandras? — To which a true believer could always say: "I don't care about that, Bill. I rest easy. You'll see how wonderful it will be once God steps in.")"

The things you love too much perish” — After Shostakovich and Volkov, p. 78. The composer goes on: “You have to treat everything with irony, especially the things you hold dear.

But how could he explain anything to them, when they understood good but not goodness, strong but not strength, black but not blackness?

Give us bread! the Savages cried. Heal us!

They were frightened by the consecrated wine, believing that the Black-Gowns drank human blood.

This is the blood of JESUS, said Pere Masse.
Was that a man? they asked.
He was the SON OF GOD, but He became a man to die for us. In memory of his sacrifice, we drink His blood.

At this they drew back and whispered in their language, with many terrified glances.