Art is not eternal.
– Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
All this attention flatters me but at the same time I know it’s completely superficial. These people see exactly what they want to see and what they want to see is a spoiled rich boy, dissatisfied with life.
– Jerzy Kosinski, The Devil Tree
It opened, stood open for a moment, and then closed with a slam.
– H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man
But consider; Visibility depends on the action of the visible bodies on light. Either a body absorbs light, or it reflects or refracts it, or does all these things. If it neither reflects nor refracts nor absorbs light, it cannot of itself be visible.
– H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man
The flag is a symbol we attach our emotions to, but it isn’t the emotion itself and it isn’t the thing we really care about. Sometimes we don’t even realize what we really care about, because we get so distracted by the symbol.
– Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Can you know all about the world without changing it? The answer is simple: No, you cannot.
– Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion
Mess is a kind of order that is so rich in detail that it is a mess.
– Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion
What is done by what is called myself is, I feel, done by something greater than myself in me.
– Ludwig Boltzmann, quoted in The User Illusion by Tor Norretranders
Outside our conscious awareness, an advanced illusion rearranges events in time.
– Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion
What matters is not saying as much as you can. It is thinking before you speak.
– Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion