“In fact we do not try to picture the afterlife, nor is it our selves in our nervous tics and optical flecks that we wish to perpetuate; it is the self as the window on the world that we can't bear to thinkof shutting. My mind when I was a boy of ten or eleven sent up its silent scream at the thought of future aeons -- at the thought of the cosmic party going on without me. The yearning for an afterlife is the opposite of selfish: it is love and praise of the world that we are privileged, in this complex interval of light, to witness and experience.” WorldTryingMindSelfFactsLightWishPartyBoysBearsTenWindowOppositesPraiseSilentComplexesSelfishNervousWitnessScreamCosmicAfterlifeYearningPrivilegedElevenIntervalsTics Author:John Updike
“... we engage in politics because we don't know anything. This is clearly revealed in the way we go about it. Our parties exist from a fear of theory. The voter fears that one idea can always be contradicted by another. Therefore the parties reciprocally defend themselves against the few old ideas they have inherited. They don't live from what they promise, but from frustrating the promises of others. This is their silent community of interests.” KnowsWayIdeasPoliticsInterestCommunityPartyTheoryPromiseSilentVotersFrustratingOld Ideas Author:Robert Musil