“The Chinese enjoyed the spectacle of death, Jim had decided, as a way of reminding themselves of how precariously they were alive.”
—
J. G. Ballard
,
book
Empire of the Sun
Source: Empire of the Sun (1984), p. 40
Context: The Chinese enjoyed the spectacle of death, Jim had decided, as a way of reminding themselves of how precariously they were alive. They liked to be cruel for the same reason, to remind themselves of the vanity of thinking the world was anything else.
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