“Adam Reith, you have made a serious mistake.” Reith nodded grimly. “Instead of an honest man I hired you.” - Jack Vance

I can now report that the mathematics of the multiple focus are a most improbable thicket, and the useful service I enforced upon what I must call an absurd set of contradictions is one of my secrets. I know that thousands of scientists, at home and abroad, are attempting to duplicate my work; they are welcome to the effort. None will succeed. Why do I speak so positively? That is my other secret.

He said that humanity in the main was crass, stupid, boorish and vulgar, and that I could learn at least this much from you.

Every Arrabin desperately asserts his individuality, with personal tricks and fads. A futile kind of life, no doubt, but isn’t all life futile?