The appreciation of the connoisseur is the highest pleasure of the artiste. - Norman Spinrad

Here, in the company of the mindless trees, the free-flying birds, the bugs and frogs that passed from stimulus directly to response without the interval of consciousness between, did I hope to lose myself in the living mandala of evolution’s less self-tortured forms.

Any attempt at willful ignorance would now be futile or worse; the only talisman against excessive knowledge that might have puissance would be more knowledge.

I could not deny that my spirit was amorally attracted to this ultimate temptation as my conscience was morally repelled by it.