"These views were voiced by the school of 'optessimists', i.e. philosophers who derived optimism for the future from a pessimistic appraisal of the p… - Stanisław Lem

Successive bursts of static came through the headphones, against a background of deep, low-pitched murmuring, which seemed to me the very voice of the planet itself.

He is no parasite on anything, whose work is real: a mechanic, a doctor, a builder, a tailor, a dishwasher. What, in comparison, does a writer produce? Semblances. This is a serious occupation?

If man had more of a sense of humour, things might have turned out differently.