Sublime

Our passage into bright contemporaneity has carried a price: The more complex and sophisticated our systems of lateral access, the more we sacrifice in the way of depth.

the essential moral act for Murdoch is being able to cast a “just and loving attention” on another person.

The new Israeli had wanted to start the Jewish narrative over, but the trial had made it clear to Israeli society—Jewish life could not be lived without a profound attachment to Jewish history, no matter how painful that might sometimes be.

Perhaps Fry actually was, as Mary McCarthy wrote, “a perfect madman.” To perceive the blinding irrational vastness of absolute evil, one almost needs to be mad.

valid.

He took the scattered information buried deep within academic publications and made it accessible, exciting, and relevant.

At first it seems that Buford is taking us nowhere we haven’t already been. But when were we last there? Aren’t we insulated by irony, weariness and disgust? Haven’t we all spent years looking the other way?

in his final death-driven surge towards ‘the big picture’.