“Design is all about desire, but strangely this desire seems almost subject-less today, or at least lack-less; that is, design seems to advance a new kind of narcissism, one that is all image and no interiority - an apotheosis of the subject that is also its disappearance. Poor little rich man: he is 'precluded from all fuure living and striving, developing and desiring' in the neo-Art Nouveau world of total design and Internet plenitude. ”

“In fact one frequently seemed to gather all sorts of similar information about subjects one had less than profound interest in.”

“The new architecture and urban design of segregation could be called Calvinist: they reflect a desire to live in a world of predestination rather than chance, to strip the world of its wide-open possibilities and replace them with freedom of choice in the marketplace.”

“Arts and disciplines of that kind are fundamentally selfish; they’re all designed to benefit the pupil—not the world - "Ishmael”

“By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich.”

“When he thought of all he’d seen, done and experienced in his life, all he’d gained, lost, desired and agonized over, he found it inconceivable that everyone else could be subject, more or less, to the same unavoidable conditions and alternatives.”