“In other centuries, human beings wanted to be saved, or improved, or freed, or educated. But in our century, they want to be entertained. The great fear is not of disease or death, but of boredom. A sense of time on our hands, a sense of nothing to do. A sense that we are not amused.”

“The supposed great misery of our century is the lack of time; our sense of that, not a disinterested love of science, and certainly not wisdom, is why we devote such a huge proportion of the ingenuity and income of our societies to finding faster ways of doing things - as if the final aim of mankind was to grow closer not to a perfect humanity, but to a perfect lightning-flash.”

“This sense of 'place' -- that there was nothing to be wanted from material things, nothing to be saved.”

“One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them.”

“You held out your hand, and I took it without stopping to make sense of what I was doing. For the first time in almost a century, I felt hope.”

“It takes centuries for sense to become common”