Sublime

Smiley also knew, or thought he knew—the idea came to him now as a mild enlightenment—that Bill in turn was also very little by himself: that while his admirers (Bland, Prideaux, Alleline, Esterhase, and all the rest of the supporters’ club) might find in him completeness, Bill’s real trick was to use them, to live through them to complete himself,

“I want to see the secretary general.” “The Planetary Defense Council is the specific agency in charge of the direction and execution of the Wallfacer Project. The supreme leader is the PDC’s rotating chair. The UN secretary general exercises no direct leadership over the PDC.” Luo Ji thought this over. “I’d still like to see the secretary general.

When Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairperson (1996–99) Brooksley Born wanted to regulate the derivatives that would later be a major cause of disaster, the PBS program Frontline detailed how she was blocked in 1998 by the triumvirate of Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and Deputy US Treasury Secr

Wallace’s fictional manuscript and the philosophy thesis were also of a piece: both asked whether language depicted the world or in some deeper way defined it and even altered it.

money’s capacity to turn morality into a matter of impersonal arithmetic—and by doing so, to justify things that would otherwise seem outrageous or obscene.

“The library is testimony to truth and to error,” a voice then said behind us. It was Jorge. Once again I was amazed (but I was to be amazed often in the days that followed) by the old man’s way of suddenly, unexpectedly appearing, as if we did not see him and he did see us. I wondered also why on earth a blind man was in the scriptorium, but I rea

He has this way of looking warily to either side of him before he says anything.

just the sort of face you would expect from one privileged child watching another privileged child receive natal treats and attentions that are by all rights her own.

He was a fairly good listener, and seemed interested and sympathetic in a slightly distant way.