Nocturnalux

“I have a foreboding of America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time–when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all of the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; with our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

And when the dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites now down to 10 seconds or less, lowest-common-denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“Have you noticed that when men want freedom, the conversation is about the nature of action, violence or non-violence? But when women want freedom, the conversation is about the nature of women, natural or unnatural?”
― Uzma Aslam Khan, The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali

“Poverty makes a crime of every indulgence.”
― George Gissing, The Nether World [with Biographical Introduction]

“Q: Why write about slavery? Haven’t we had enough stories about slavery? Why do we need another one?

A: I could have written about upper middle class white people who feel sad sometimes, but there’s a lot of competition.”
― Colson Whitehead