So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.

There is psychological pleasure in this takeoff, too, for the swiftness of the plane’s ascent is an exemplary symbol of transformation. The display of power can inspire us to imagine analogous, decisive shifts in our own lives, to imagine that we, too, might one day surge above much that now looms over us.” P. 38-39

Blind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the occasional handful of berries found on the underside of a bush in late summer, viewing it as a sign of the unexpected munificence of a divine creator, but we became modern when we gave up on awaiting sporadic gifts from above and sought to render any pleasing sensation immediately and repeatedly available.

You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.

The materialistic view of happiness of our age starkly revealed in our understanding of the word "luxury.

We study biology, physics, movements of glaciers... Where are the classes on envy, feeling wronged, despair, bitterness.

Literature deeply stands opposed to the dominant value system-the one that rewards money and power. Writers are on the other side-they make us sympathetic to ideas and feelings that are of deep importance but can’t afford airtime in a commercialized, status-consciou s, and cynical world.