“People are obscenities. Would rather be music than be a mass of tubes squeezing semisolids around itself for a few decades before becoming so dribblesome it'll no longer fucntion.”

"Letters from Zedelghem", p. 470
Cloud Atlas (2004), Letters from Zedelghem (Part 2)

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David Mitchell68

English novelist 1969

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“You neglect and belittle the desert.
The desert is not remote in southern tropics
The desert is not only around the corner,
The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you,
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“The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you,
The desert is in the heart of your brother.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Choruses from The Rock (1934)
Context: You neglect and belittle the desert.
The desert is not remote in southern tropics
The desert is not only around the corner,
The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you,
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Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian

Letter to Arthur de Gobineau, 22 October 1843, Tocqueville Reader, p. 229 http://books.google.com/books?id=JhEVK0UMgFMC&pg=PA229&vq=studied+the+koran&dq=%22few+religions+in+the+world+as+deadly+to+men+as+that+of+Muhammad%22+-tocqueville&source=gbs_search_s&cad=0 <br class="br">Original text: J’ai beaucoup étudié le Koran à cause surtout de notre position vis-à-vis des populations musulmanes en Algérie et dans tout l’Orient. Je vous avoue que je suis sorti de cette étude avec la conviction qu’il y avait eu dans le monde, à tout prendre, peu de religions aussi funestes aux hommes que celle de Mahomet. [...] Elle est, à mon sens, la principale cause de la décadence aujourd’hui si visible du monde musulman, et quoique moins absurde que le polythéisme antique, ses tendances sociales et politiques étant, à mon avis, infiniment plus à redouter, je la regarde relativement au paganisme lui-même comme une décadence plutôt que comme un progrès (Wikisource) <br class="br">1840s

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See also Esse quam videri
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“People are obscenities. Would rather be music than be a mass of tubes squeezing semisolids around itself for a few decades before becoming so dribblesome it'll no longer fucntion.”

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David Mitchell68

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