Any fool can see the limits of seeing, but not even the wisest know the limits of knowing. Thus is ignorance rendered invisible, and are all Men made… - R. Scott Bakker

It is no accident that fantasy is preoccupied with our pre-Enlightenment, pre-crisis past. The contemporary world is a nihilistic world, where all signs point to the illusory status of love, beauty, goodness and so on. ... Fantasy is the celebration of what we no longer are: individuals certain of our meaningfulness in a meaningful world. The wish-fulfillment that distinguishes fantasy from other genres is not to be the all-conquering hero, but to live in a meaningful world.

The difference between the critic and the apologist in philosophy is the difference between conceiving philosophy as refuge, a post hoc means to rationalize and so recuperate what we cherish or require, and conceiving philosophy as exposure, an ad hoc means to mutate thought and so see our way through what we think we cherish or require. ... To truly expose thought is to be willing to let it die… Or become inhuman.

I tell you, guilt dwells nowhere but in the eyes of the accuser. This men know even as they deny it, which is why they so often make murder their absolution. The truth of crime lies not with the victim but with the witness.