"He didn't ask "Where will you spend eternity?" as religious the-end-is-near picketers did but rather, "With what, in this modern democracy, will you… - Saul Bellow

You do all you can to humanize and familiarize the world, and suddenly it becomes more strange than ever.

In the end you can't save your soul and life by thought. But if you think, the least of the consolation prizes is the world.

It seems hard for the American people to believe that anything could be more exciting than the times themselves. What we read daily and view on the TV has thrust imagined forms into the shadow. We are staggeringly rich in facts, in things, and perhaps, like the nouveau riche of other ages, we want our wealth faithfully reproduced by the artist.