Tuesday, September 4, 2012

After Dachau by Daniel Quinn

After Dachau

"In a matter like this," the doctor said, "we're like people trapped in a cave.  We can sit here and starve to death or we can set off to explore the only corridor that presents itself and hope for the best."

The family didn't care for the name of the organization, and it was quite their usual practice to reshape reality to suit themselves.

I almost feel that someone who lives without an obsession has a poor sort of life.


"Some of this is true of Miss Hastings -- and some of it isn't.  There are some very fundamental things that exist in your heads that are missing in hers.  These are things you take for granted, that you hardly think about at all, and that may actually seem to you quite inconsequential -- almost not worth bothering about.

"The mongrel races!" the girls chorused triumphantly.

"Don't you ever try answering that question?"
"No, because maybe we couldn't stand hearing the answer.  We're afraid to know what's wrong with us."

We don't live in a world that is stagnant, as Mallory dubbed it.  We live in a world that is stable -- wonderfully stable, blessedly stable, as it deserves to be for the race that is the pinnacle of cosmic development.

"You don't seem upset to find out that someone cares, after all."
"Certainly not.  One can't learn anything from being right, you know."






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