The Dark Design

I had the honor to serve at the siege of Arras. Where I received a thrust through the throat, the second of the serious wounds that convinced me, along with all else I had seen of wars miseries and horrors, that Mars was the stupidest of the gods.

Imagination was the great cozener of the past.

As for the Bible, it was a book, and all books told the truth in the sense that their authors believed they were writing a kind of truth.

“You must not stereotype!” Cyrano cried.

“And you are right,” she said. “That is a feeling I loathe, and yet I find myself doing it all the time. However, so often…well, most people are living stereotypes, aren’t they?”

He seemed to get along with just about everybody. Which, in my book, makes him suspect.

Peter would find out that that was superstition, a reasoning from effect to cause, totally invalid. It was in a class with the belief that if you eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while you were sitting in the outhouse, the devil would get you.

I do believe that man is a rope between animal and superman. But the superman I'm thinking of isn't Nietzsche's. The real superhuman, man or woman, is the person who's rid himself of all prejudices, neuroses, and psychoses, who realizes his full potential as a human being, who acts naturally on the basis of gentleness, compassion, and love, who thinks for himself and refuses to follow the herd. That's the genuine dyed-in-the-wool superman.

But he’s sincere. Which doesn’t mean he knows what he’s talking about.

“I don’t believe in women’s intuition,” Sam said. “They’re just culturally conditioned to observe different patterns of action and speech, different gestures and inflections from those men observe. They’re more sensitive to certain subtleties because of this conditioning.”

“We’re not that stupid!”

“No, but you’re that impulsive. Which is a form of stupidity.”

“The trouble with you, Peter—one of the troubles—is you worry too much about other people’s behavior. And you have too high ideals for them, ideals which you yourself don’t try to live up to.”

“I know I can’t live up to them, so I make a no pretense,” Frigate said.

“But it bothers me that others claim to have these ideals and to be living up to them. If I point out that they aren’t, they get angry.”

The little Moor chuckled. “Naturally. Your criticism threatens their self-image. If that were to be destroyed, they, too, would be destroyed. At least, they think so.”

Burton thought the man was crazy, though he was discreet enough not to say so. He and his crew had fallen into the hands of fanatics. Fortunately, the god had told Metusael that his worshipers must hurt no one unless it was in self-defense. However, he knew from experience that “self-defense” could mean whatever a person or group wanted it to mean.

The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars but in our lousy genes. Or in the failure of one’s conquest of one’s self.

The fault, dear Brutus, is in our fear of knowing ourselves.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, but it sounds deep. I’ll think up an explanation later.”

TV, the worst thing that had happened to the twentieth century. After the atom bomb and overpopulation, of course.

Anyway, women are about as mysterious as a tin mine. All you have to do is carry a lantern into the dark places, and you see everything. But men like to think women are the eternally mysterious. That saves men the trouble of asking questions, taking a little time and effort.

Beauty is beautiful because it is doomed to perish!

Then she warned her self—for the ten thousandth time?—that she must not be as guilty of prejudice as others. Find the facts first and study them before judgment.

The religions of Jesus, Paul, and Buddha had started to degenerate before their founders were cold in their graves. Just as St. Francis’ order had begun corrupting before its founder’s body was rotten.

Chance, another word for destiny.

Was destiny anything but chance? Probably. But the odds against this happening on Earth were infinity to one.

Nightmare in paradise. Or what could have been paradise if so many human beings did not insist on make in a hell of it.

“Would you like to talk?”

“When I dream, I am talking.”

“But to yourself.”

“Who knows me better?” He laughed softly.

“And who can deceive you better,” she said a little tartly.