Urbanized men and women experience not life but the abstraction of life, on ever higher levels of refinement and dislocation from reality. They becom… - Jack Vance

“For an intelligent man,” snapped Reith, “you are extremely obstinate and unimaginative. Someday I am sure you will recognize your error; until then, believe whatever you care to believe.”

Here was the milieu he loved: conversation! Supple sentences, with first and second meanings and overtones beyond, outrageous challenges with cleverly planned slip-points, rebuttals of elegant brevity; deceptions and guiles, patient explanations of the obvious, fleeting allusions to the unthinkable. As a preliminary, the conversationalist must gauge the mood, the intelligence, and the verbal facility of the company.

The repair system exists to keep the machinery operating but no provision had been made to repair the repair system.