“The strategic problem is, of course, that simulacra are reassuring only when viewed from outside. They do not provide an existential model for how to be in the world. One can appreciate the brilliance of the embalmer's work, but one would not want to be its object.”

“The problem with the heart is how it can have so many opposite feelings coursing through it all at the same time. It's really an inconsistent thing- appreciating something one minute and hating it the next. ”

“Nevertheless, what was made in the hope of transforming the world need not be rejected because it failed to do so – otherwise, one would also have to throw out a good deal of the greatest painting and poetry of the nineteenth century. An objective political failure can still work as a model of intellectual affirmation or dissent.”

“The determination to outwit one's situation means that one has no models, only object lessons.”

“the brain's business is not to give us an accurate or objective view of the world, but to give us a useful view - one we can act on”

“A life is such a strange object, at one moment translucent, at another utterly opaque, an object I make with my own hands, an object imposed on me, an object for which the world provides the raw material and then steals it from me again, pulverized by events, scattered, broken, scored yet retaining its unity; how heavy it is and how inconsistent: this contradiction breeds many misunderstandings.”