You used the word "civilization", which means a set of abstractions, symbols, conventions. Experience tends to be vicarious; emotions are predigested and electrical; ideas become more real than things.

I don't read other science fiction. I don't read any at all.

I haven't been to a movie since somebody gave me free tickets to Star Wars, which I went to.

I categorically declare first my absolute innocence, second my lack of criminal intent, and third my effusive apologies.

The void is a mouth crying to be filled, a blank mind aching for thought, a cavity desperate for shape. What is not implies what is.

Of all questions, why? is the least pertinent. It begs the question; it assumes the larger part of its own response; to wit, that a sensible response exists.

I suffer from a spiritual malaise which manifests itself in outbursts of vicious rage.