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Endgame Quotes

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Endgame Quotes

“When the rush of the weak sweeps over those that strive to be strong, its destruction. The commonplaces of moral judgment become fogged with the lack of perception stained with the sting of longing. The voice of reason is lost in the envious echoes of hearts torn by battle. The song of our children echo the misfortune of their parent's haze---we all started out small and had dreams to become something more than what we were.”

ChildrenStoriesChoicesFearSupportSorrowPerceptionBlindEnvyJudgementComparisonEchoesFogMisguidedDemiseBattlesEndgameCloudedMisfortuneHazeSelf Fulfilling ProphecyLife StoriesUnawareNot ListeningLack Of SupportFantasy WorldSelf RelizationReading Too Far
Author:Shannon L. Alder
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“The totality constituted by Good and Evil together transcends us, but we should accept it totally. There can be no intelligence of things so long as this fundamental rule is ignored. The illusion that the two can be distinguished in order to promote one or the other is absurd. (This applies to the proponents of evil for evil's sake as much as to anyone else, for they will end up doing good.) All kinds of events are out there, impossible to predict. They have already occurred, or are just about to heave into view. All we can do is train our searchlight, as it were, and keep our telescopic lens on this virtual world in the hope that some of those events will be obliging enough to allow themselves to be captured. Theory can be no more than this: a trap set in the hope that reality will be naive enough to fall into it. The essential thing is to point the searchlight the right way. Unfortunately, we don't know which way that is. We can only comb the sky. In most instances the events are so far away, metaphysically speaking, that they merely cause a slight phosphorescence on the screen. They have to be developed and enlarged, like photographs. Not in order to discover their meaning, however: they are not logograms, but holograms. They can no more be explained than the fixed spectrum of a star or the variations of red. To capture such strange events, theory itself must be remade as something strange: as a perfect crime, or as a strange attractor.”

SkyEndgameHologramsScreenSimulacrumsLosing From Winning To Much
Book:The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena
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“She’s stronger than you are, Sam. It’s like fighting yourself and Caine and Jack and Dekka, all at once.” “Yeah.” “Talk to Astrid about it.” “I already talked to Astrid.” “And she’s okay with a suicide mission? Because I’m not. You go out there, go to win, huh? Don’t go out there thinking you’re doing us a favor by getting killed.” Sam sighed. “It’s the endgame, my friend.” “Sam . . .,” Edilio began, but that was all he had, that one word, that one-word plea for a different solution. “Take care of Astrid for me. Try to keep her safe and don’t let her follow me.”

EndgameSam TempleKilledGaiaAstrid EllisonTake Care OfEdilio EscobarKeep SafeSuicide Mission
Book:Light
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“HAMM: In my house. (pause.) One day you’ll be blind, like me. You’ll be sitting there, a speck in the void, in the dark, for ever, like me. (pause.) One day you’ll say to yourself, I’m tired, I’ll sit down, and you’ll go and sit down. Then you’ll say, I’m hungry, I’ll get up and get something to eat. But you won’t get up. You’ll say, I shouldn’t have sat down, but since I have I’ll sit on a little longer, then I’ll get up and get something to eat. But you won’t get up and you won’t get anything to eat. (pause.) You’ll look at the wall a while, then you’ll say, I’ll close my eyes, perhaps have a little sleep, after that I’ll feel better, and you’ll close them. And when you open them again there’ll be no wall any more. (pause.) Infinite emptiness will be all around you, all the resurrected dead of all the ages wouldn’t fill it, and there you’ll be like a little bit of grit in the middle of the steppe. (pause.) Yes, one day you’ll know what it is, you’ll be like me, except that you won’t have anyone with you, because you won’t have had pity on anyone and because there won’t be anyone left to have pity on. (pause.)”

EndgameSamuel Beckett
Book:Endgame
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“[...] The West, having destroyed its own values, finds itself back at the zero degree of symbolic power, and in a turnabout, it wants to impose the zero degree on everyone. lt challenges the rest of the world to annihilate itself symbolically as well. lt demands that the rest of the world enter into its game, participate in the generalized, planetary exchange and fall into its trap. Then an extraordinary potlatch comes into play between global power and the powers opposing it, between those who wager their own death and those who cannot wager it because they no longer control it.The game does not end there. There is a moral and philosophical confrontation, almost a metaphysical one, beyond Good and Evil. Islam? The United States? lt doesn't matter! There is a confrontation between two powers. lt is an asymmetrical potlatch between terrorism and global power, and each side fights with its own weapons. Terrorism wagers the death of terrorists, which is a gesture with tremendous symbolic power and the West responds with its complete powerlessness. But this powerlessness is also a challenge. Challenge versus challenge. When people make fun of the carnival, the masquerade of the elections in America every four years, they are being too hasty. In the name of critical thought, of very European, very French thought, we do a contemptuous analysis of this kind of parody and self-denial. But we are wrong, because the empire of simulation, of simulacra, of parody, but also of networks, constitutes the true global power. It is more founded on this than on economic control. The essential is in the extraordinary trap set for the rest of the world so that everyone goes to the zero degree of value, a trap that fascinates the rest of the world.”

EndgameZero Degree Of Culture
Book:The Agony of Power
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“So endgames are naturally messy. They may not be very dynamic, but when an active war is shutting down, there is still a lot of cleaning up to do. It may sound grim, but that's what it looks like. There are broken things everywhere, wounds and corpses, general messiness. Things collapsing due to zemblanity forces that have been set in motion but are too large to control.”

Social ChangeEndingsEndgameVucaGames People PlayGames Of Life
Book:Be Slightly Evil: A Playbook for Sociopaths
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“[Ibykos fr. 286 translated using only words from p. 47 of Endgame by Samuel Beckett] In your kitchen, on the one hand, bright corpses starting to stink of having an idea, where one of my legs [is] and beneath sooner or later the whole universe doesn't ring and won't work. On the other hand, I shouldn't think so. Nay Rather, like a speck in the void, pacing to and fro, accompanied by the alarm, frankly, angrily, impatiently, not very convinced, [it] kisses me goodbye. I'm dead. (Pause).”

PoetryEndgameBeckettAnne CarsonNay Rather
Author:Anne Carson
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“All right," she snaps at the computer. "I get it. I'm slowing down! Gods!" "Activating Generic Ocular Display Sequence. G.O.D.S." The front of her shuttle goes transparent and Vol experiences a nauseating wave of vertigo. "No, that's not what I meant! It's an expression! What the hell?" "Error. Request must be made in the form of a command." "Oh, f*** you." "Error. Command not recognised." "I'm not surprised," Vol mutters.”

ComputerEndgameNenia CampbellVol
Book:Endgame
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