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Quote by José Luis Sampedro

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La vieja sirena

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José Luis Sampedro

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“How do survivors feel? Relieved and grateful, perhaps. As excited about their saved life as if it were a gift that the rustling fingers feverishly unwrap from its packaging on Christmas morning and whatever is underneath: you are happy. This is how it should be when you have survived the worst. Far from the crippling horror we were feeling.”

“Hence, it is quite conceivable that even the sense of guilt engendered by civilization is not recognized as such, but remains for the most part unconscious, or manifests itself as an unease, a discontent, for which other motivations are sought. The religions, at least, have never ignored the part that a sense of guilt plays in civilization. Moreover - a point I failed to appreciate earlier - they claim to redeem humanity from this sense of guilt, which they call sin. From the way in which this redemption is achieved in Christianity - through the sacrificial death of one man, who thereby takes upon himself the guilt shared by all - we drew an inference as to what may have been the original occasion for our acquiring this primordial guilt, which also marked the beginning of civilization.”

“Words can be more lethal than blades, Magnus. And Loki is a master of words. To beat him, you must find your inner poet. Only one thing can give you a chance to beat Loki at his own game.” “Mead,” I guessed. “Kvasir’s Mead.” The answer didn’t sit right with me. I’d been on the streets long enough to see how well “mead” improved people’s skills. Pick your poison: beer, wine, vodka, whiskey. Folks claimed they needed it to get through the day. They called it liquid courage. It made them funnier, smarter, more creative. Except it didn’t. It just made them less able to tell how unfunny and stupid they were acting.”