We live in a composite world, so we can see, while the demon lives in a world in balance and therefore cannot.
– Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion
You sense that there is something treacherous hiding behind every reef; no matter how much you explore you won’t ever know what it is.
– Jerzy Kosinski, The Devil Tree
Most people are probably looking for lovers with whom they can share basic interests. In my case, I’m looking for someone who can make me feel pain and fear, who can expose my real hang-ups.
-Jerzy Kosinski, The Devil Tree
The saddle will certainly not fit, such is the imperfection of our transitory life; it will assuredly topple and tend to overset…
– R. L. Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
…in fact the whole fabric of a man except the red of his blood and the black pigment of his hair, are all made up of transparent, colourless tissue. So little suffices to make us visible one to the other. For the most part the fibers of a living creature are no more opaque than water.
– H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man
Here we are, I thought, a bunch of grown-up kids locked in an empty room playing naïve games with each other. No one understands anybody else. We are wandering around in dark caves, holding out little private candles, hoping for some great illumination. I don’t like to think I’m confused or simple-minded as the others, but if I really am more complex, more experienced than they are, why should I want them to understand me?
– Jerzy Kosinski, The Devil Tree
It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first.
– Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
The human mind was able to formulate the idea of a universal calculating machine at the very moment it became obvious that we cannot calculate everything mechanically; that there are questions that we know as answerable only once they have been answered, and not before.
– Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion
That is to say, depth is a measure of how many surprises the object has been subjected to in its history.
– Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion
I know there are people who must be completely independent of others in order to feel free. For them, responding to someone else is like obeying a command. Any action that does not spring entirely from their own desires is false. I can understand this compulsion for detachment.
– Jerzy Kosinski, The Devil Tree