“Civilization is communication. When that which should be expressed and transmitted is lost, civilization comes to and end. Click … OFF.”
“Looking at the ocean makes me miss people, and hanging out with people makes me miss the ocean.”
“I didn’t know it would get this hot,” she said. “It’s hot as hell.”
“Sounds like you’ve been there.”
“I heard it from someone. They make it hotter and hotter till you think you’ll go crazy; then they move you someplace cooler for a while. Then when you’ve recovered a little they move you back again.”
“So hell is like a sauna.”
“Yeah, more or less. But a few can’t recover and go totally bonkers.”
“So what happens to them?”
“They get sent up to heaven, where they’re forced to paint the walls. You see, the walls in heaven have to be kept a perfect white. The slightest smudge is unacceptable. It’s an image thing. As a result, they have to keep painting from dawn till dusk every day. It messes up their respiratory systems big time.”
“I know. But I’m like an old jalopy. Fix one thing and another breaks down.”
“Sort of,” I said. “But try to think it through a little further. All of us are laboring under the same conditions. It’s like we’re all flying in the same busted airplane. Sure, some of us are luckier than others. Some are tough and some are weak. Some are rich and some are poor. But no one’s superman – in that way, we’re all weak. If we own things, we’re terrified we’ll lose them; if we’ve got nothing we worry it’ll be that way forever. We’re all the same. If you catch on to that early enough, you can try to make yourself stronger, even if only a little. It’s okay to fake it. Right? There are no truly strong people. Only people who pretend to be strong.”
“What would be the point of writing a novel about things everyone knows?”
“Lies are terrible things. One could say that the greatest sins afflicting modern society are the proliferation of lies and silence. We lie through our teeth, then swallow our tongues.”
“All things pass. None of us can manage to hold on to anything. In the way, we live our lives.”
