Where civilization entailed the corruption of barbarian virtues and the creation of a dependent people, I was… — J. M. Coetzee

How can I accept that disaster has overtaken my life when the world continues to move so tranquilly through its cycles?

Truly, man was not made to live alone!

It is the knowledge of how contingent my unease is, how dependent on a baby that wails beneath my window one day and does not wail the next, that brings the worst shame to me, the greatest indifference to annihilation.