The only writers who have any peace are the ones who don't write. And there are some like that. They wallow in a sea of possibilities. To express a t… - Stanisław Lem

even the most seemingly abstract, sublimely theoretical, mathematicized achievements of science have in reality moved only a step or two away from a prehistoric, coarsely sensory-based, anthropomorphic understanding of the world around us.

What would happen to us if we could truly sympathize with others, feel with them, suffer for them? The fact that human anguish, fear, and suffering melt away with the death of the individual, that nothing remains of the ascents, the declines, the orgasms, and the agonies, is a praiseworthy gift of evolution, which made us like the animals. If from every unfortunate, from every victim, there remained even a single atom of his feelings, if thus grew the inheritance of the generations, if even a spark could pass from man to man, the world would be full of raw, bowel-torn howling.

What was civilization ever, really, but the attempt by man to talk himself into being good? Only good, mind you. The rest had to be shoved somewhere out of sight, under the rug. Which History indeed did, at times politely, at times police-ly, and yet something was always sticking out, breaking loose, overthrowing.