The Dong button was just that, a big green button with the word Dong engraved on it. You pushed it, and it went dong. Well, that was almost too simpl… - R. A. Lafferty

And the people had begun to gather, tame people with a new wild look about them. Like wolves they were, and they snuffed and howled. Panlykonium reigned in Centrality Square, .and the air sparked with danger.

The thing that is called ‘mainstream fiction’ is an invalid masquerade of the world. It wears masks identical to the faces under the masks; it wears costumes identical to the clothes under the costumes; it enclosed the ‘world sets’ in ‘theatrical sets’ of the same appearance. What kind of masquerade is that which does not mask?

Per­fec­tion is nearly al­ways im­possible, but it is never dif­fi­cult. Which is to say that if there is any dif­fi­culty to it, any lack of ease, then it has already failed of per­fec­tion. All per­fect things are easy. But they are not fre­quent.

The mar­ried life of Charles Peis­son and Dotty was per­fect. From the mo­ment that Charles re­turned to town, everything was per­fect. The mark of per­fec­tion is its very sim­pli­city. Charles had a knack for un­ty­ing knots, for resolv­ing dif­fi­culties. The knack does not con­sist of ig­nor­ing the dif­fi­culties nor in skirt­ing them. It doesn’t even con­sist of fa­cing them and con­quer­ing them in the old copy-book fash­ion, though ap­par­ently they are faced and conquered in an­other fash­ion. Or some of them are never conquered at all. Part of the idea is just not to be dif­fi­cult about dif­fi­culties.

If the rest of the idea were un­der­stood, then every­one would have per­fec­tion; and they do not.