"The sounds of shooting and explosions usually begin at dawn, at least that's when I first sense them, and they don't really subside until well into the night."


"Two months later my friend sheepishly came over to my apartment with 10 hour long video tapes of a Pakistani television broadcast of the life of Ghalib. He had received the package from his dad with a note that he was to sit with me and watch the whole thing, translating the entire 10 hours."



“When I complete my forty-eight-volume encyclopaedia, all the great ideas and words that ever need to be uttered will have been said; I will fill that unbelievable gap in one stroke; every one of them will be utterly bewildered.”


"That's the flip side of the Mad Max scenario; the supposed return of pastorality , where there are no TVs and everyone eats goat cheese. But this delusion doesn't have any more to do with the way things are going to be than the dystopian apocalyptic view. Those are like psychic tumors, stress reactions, visions of powerlessness. What we really need is some way to make sense of our predicament and to empower people to control their own destiny." --Bruc* St*rling, in: Acros th* Wound*d Galaxi*s


"As I approach East Broadway station, suddenly the carriage fills with sane people. Tall, thin people who talk to each other warmly and animatedly, people who look poised and intelligent, people who look as if they live in groups and realize that society is all about obligation, and achievement comes collectively. They're the Americans of the future, and they're Chinese."