““The whole of modern so-called civilised existence is an attempt to deny reality insofar as it exists. When did Don last look at the stars, when did Norman last get soaked in a rainstorm? The stars as far as these people are concerned are the Manhattan-pattern!” He jerked his thumb at a window beyond which the city’s treasure-house of coloured light glimmered gaudily.”

— John Brunner, book Stand on Zanzibar

continuity (13) “Multiply by a Million”
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

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John Brunner147

British author 1934–1995

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“The whole of modern so-called civilised existence is an attempt to deny reality insofar as it exists. When did Don last look at the stars, when did Norman last get soaked in a rainstorm? The stars as far as these people are concerned are the Manhattan-pattern!”

John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar

He jerked his thumb at a window beyond which the city’s treasure-house of coloured light glimmered gaudily.
continuity (13) “Multiply by a Million”
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

“When you have nothing more to say,
when the stars bleed
and the flowers crucified,
at last, go away, far off,
when the light crying in night
and the child doesn'r dream,
then, go far away,
between existences there is the freedom,
of infinity the mutiny.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: An ocean of souls

“When did you last bask in the sun, friends? When did you last dare drink from a creek? When did you last risk picking fruit and eating it straight from the tree? What were your doctor’s bills last year? Which of you live in cities where you don’t wear a filtermask? Which of you spent this year’s vacation in the mountains because the sea is fringed with garbage?”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

November “THERE IS HOPE YET”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

“When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?”

William Blake Songs of Innocence and of Experience

St. 5
1790s, The Tyger (1794)
Source: Songs of Innocence and of Experience

“There was a time when evilness did not exist, and there will be a time when it will no more exist, whereas there was no time when virtue did not exist, and there will be no time when it will not exist. For the germs of virtue are impossible to destroy.”

Evagrius Ponticus (345–399) Christian monk

Kephalaia Gnostika 1.40

“It looks like the whole city is made out of stars.”

Brian Selznick book The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Source: The Invention of Hugo Cabret

“Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star.
It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago.
Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.”

Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun

Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

“A moment or an eternity—did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist. She smiled, her last smile, to so much that had been possible.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

We The Living (1936)

“There are dead stars that still shine because their light is trapped in time. Where do I stand in this light, which does not strictly exist?”

Don DeLillo book Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

“'"Spirit" is matter seen in a stronger light. What else did Malebranche mean when he spoke of "seeing all things in God"? Existence is a mystery because the light of it is inexhaustible.”

L. P. Jacks (1860–1955) British educator, philosopher, and Unitarian minister

Near the Brink: Observations of a Nonagenarian (1952). p. 17.

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