Sublime

This master of chemistry . . . emerged from his experience with LSD-25 convinced the molecule offered civilization not only a potential therapeutic but also a spiritual balm – by opening a crack ‘in the edifice of materialistic rationality’.

Pavel Florensky

Chandler’s lesson is that a private-eye novel should propel the reader to destinations of the human condition where raw fear and power fire the dreams and reality of the characters.

They stand against the wall and drink their beers, content for the moment to watch the crowd moving past. With all the varieties on display it’s like a migration scene from a nature documentary, all shapes, ages, sizes, colors, and income indicators, although well-fed Anglo is the dominant demographic. Having served on their behalf as a frontline

But to see a particular person in terms of Irish or German, Jewish or Catholic, black or white, Alcoholic or Suicidal, Victim or Borderline, sees class concepts, not people. We are then talking sociology more than soul. We need an incredible number of words to read expressions. “Most people cannot ‘say’ what the person before them is like, but

To Pascal, the universe revealed by modern physics is a boundless vacuum in which man finds himself at sea, prisoner of a meaningless nature that is utterly silent in the face of the human demand for the wisdom we need in order to live well.

Nothing endures, nothing is precise and certain (except the mind of a pedant), perfection is the mere repudiation of that ineluctable marginal inexactitude which is the mysterious inmost quality of Being.

'What K did – what Joel Athens Lantern did, because that was K's name once upon a time, and I can tell you that because no one of that name exists any more – was file a request for some personal time and go back to work. Because that was what he knew was the professional thing to do – and if he wasn't a father any more, or a husband, the least he