4
" As long as they are carnivorous and/or humanoid, the monster's form matters little. Whether it is Tyrannosaurus rex, saber toothed tiger, grizzly bear, werewolf, bogeyman, vampire, Wendigo, Rangda, Grendel, Moby-Dick, Joseph Stalin, the Devil, or any other manifestation of the Beast, all are objects of dark fascination, in large part because of their capacity to consciously, willfully destroy us. What unites these creatures--ancient or modern, real or imagined, beautiful or repulsive, animal, human, or god--is their superhuman strength, malevolent cunning, and, above all, their capricious, often vengeful appetite--for us. This, in fact, is our expectation of them; it's a kind of contract we have. In this capacity, the seemingly inexhaustible power of predators to fascinate us--to " capture attention" --fulfills a need far beyond morbid titillation. It has a practical application. Over time, these creatures or, more specifically, the dangers they represent, have found their way into our consciousness and taken up permanent residence there. In return, we have shown extraordinary loyalty to them--to the point that we re-create them over and over in every medium, through every era and culture, tuning and adapting them to suit changing times and needs. It seems they are a key ingredient in the glue that binds us to ourselves and to each other. "
5
" Faustus, who embraced evil and shunned righteousness, became the foremost symbol of the misuse of free will, that sublime gift from God with its inherent opportunity to choose virtue and reject iniquity. “What shall a man gain if he has the whole world and lose his soul,” (Matt. 16: v. 26) - but for a notorious name, the ethereal shadow of a career, and a brief life of fleeting pleasure with no true peace? This was the blackest and most captivating tragedy of all, few could have remained indifferent to the growing intrigue of this individual who apparently shook hands with the devil and freely chose to descend to the molten, sulphuric chasm of Hell for all eternity for so little in exchange. It is a drama that continues to fascinate today as powerfully as when Faustus first disseminated his infamous card in the Heidelberg locale to the scandal of his generation. In fine, a life of good or evil, the hope of Heaven or the despair of Hell, Faustus stands as a reminder that the choice between these two absolutes also falls to us. "
― E.A. Bucchianeri , Faust: My Soul Be Damned for the World Volume 1
8
" I wanted to write an adventure story, not, it's true, I really did. I shall have failed, that's all. Adventures bore me. I have no idea how to talk about countries, how to make people wish they had been there. I am not a good travelling salesman. Countries? Where are they , whatever became of them.
When I was twelve I dreamed of Hongkong. That tedious, commonplace little provincial town! Shops sprouting from every nook and cranny! The Chinese junks pictured on the lids of chocolate boxes used to fascinate me. Junks: sort of chopped-off barges, where the housewives do all their cooking and washing on deck. They even have television. As for the Niagara Falls: water, nothing but water! A dam is more interesting; at least one can occasionally see a big crack at its base, and hope for some excitement.
When one travels, one sees nothing but hotels. Squalid rooms, with iron bedsteads, and a picture of some kind hanging on the wall from a rusty nail, a coloured print of London Bridge or the Eiffel Tower.
One also sees trains, lots of trains, and airports that look like restaurants, and restaurants that look like morgues. All the ports in the world are hemmed in by oil slicks and shabby customs buildings. In the streets of the towns, people keep to the sidewalks, cars stop at red lights. If only one occasionally arrived in a country where women are the colour of steel and men wear owls on their heads. But no, they are sensible, they all have black ties, partings to one side, brassières and stiletto heels. In all the restaurants, when one has finished eating one calls over the individual who has been prowling among the tables, and pays him with a promissory note. There are cigarettes everywhere! There are airplanes and automobiles everywhere. "
― J.M.G. Le Clézio , The Book of Flights
9
" Look everywhere. There are miracles and curiosities to fascinate and intrigue for many lifetimes:
the intricacies of nature and everything in the world and universe around us from the miniscule to the infinite; physical, chemical and biological functionality; consciousness, intelligence and the ability to learn; evolution, and the imperative for life; beauty and other abstract interpretations; language and other forms of communication; how we make our way here and develop social patterns of culture and meaningfulness;
how we organise ourselves and others; moral imperatives; the practicalities of survival and all the embellishments we pile on top; thought, beliefs, logic, intuition, ideas; inventing, creating, information, knowledge; emotions, sensations, experience, behaviour.
We are each unique individuals arising from a combination of genetic, inherited, and learned information, all of which can be extremely fallible.
Things taught to us when we are young are quite deeply ingrained. Obviously some of it (like don’t stick your finger in a wall socket) is very useful,
but some of it is only opinion – an amalgamation of views from people you just happen to have had contact with.
A bit later on we have access to lots of other information via books, media, internet etc, but it is important to remember that most of this is still just opinion, and often biased.
Even subjects such as history are presented according to the presenter’s or author’s viewpoint, and science is continually changing. Newspapers and TV tend to cover news in the way that is most useful to them (and their funders/advisors), Research is also subject to the decisions of funders and can be distorted by business interests. Pretty much anyone can say what they want on the internet, so our powers of discernment need to be used to a great degree there too.
Not one of us can have a completely objective view as we cannot possibly have access to, and filter, all knowledge available, so we must accept that our views are bound to be subjective. Our understanding and responses are all very personal, and our views extremely varied. We tend to make each new thing fit in with the picture we have already started in our heads, but we often have to go back and adjust the picture if we want to be honest about our view of reality as we continually expand it. We are taking in vast amounts of information from others all the time, so need to ensure we are processing that to develop our own true reflection of who we are. "
― Jay Woodman
10
" It's time the world knew what was really discovered at Delphi." says Dr Moses Frank, in The Elena Text. But who is Moses Frank and what was he referring to? The Elena Text is a controversial and provocative thriller set in the world of antiquities and archaeology, based around the untold story of what was really discovered at Delphi in Greece - but has remained a closely-guarded secret since the 1930s. In Moses Frank we have a character who single-handedly defines the extremities of recent times, the stateless survivor, against all the odds, the refugee turned millionaire, the entrepreneur who creates his own rules, a charming and educated artist with a first class degree from the university of life, a thinker but an unashamed money-maker and pleasure-seeker. Moses Frank is a man who can be forgiven almost anything because he is so hugely admired as a dealer, a canny sleuth who has tracked down the world’s greatest missing antiquities.But despite all his gifts and talents, Moses Frank is also a man bristling with self-doubt - searching endlessly for the finest examples of human art, the sensual peaks of female beauty and some thin slivers of meaning in his terribly successful life.I believe Frank is a rich, unpredictable and multi-facetted lead character who will continue to fascinate readers in volumes 2 and 3 of THE MOSES FRANK TRILOGY. "
16
" In accepting and defending the social institution of slavery, the Greeks were harder-hearted than we but clearer-headed; they knew that labor as such is slavery, and that no man can feel a personal pride in being a laborer. A man can be proud of being a worker – someone, that is, who fabricates enduring objects, but in our society, the process of fabrication has been so rationalized in the interests of speed, economy and quantity that the part played by the individual factory employee has become too small for it to be meaningful to him as work, and practically all workers have been reduced to laborers. It is only natural, therefore, that the arts which cannot be rationalized in this way – the artist still remains personally responsible for what he makes – should fascinate those who, because they have no marked talent, are afraid, with good reason, that all they have to look forward to is a lifetime of meaningless labor. This fascination is not due to the nature of art itself, but to the way in which an artists works; he, and in our age, almost nobody else, is his own master. The idea of being one’s own master appeals to most human beings, and this is apt to lead to the fantastic hope that the capacity for artistic creation is universal, something nearly all human beings, by virtue, not by some special talent, but due to their humanity, could do if they tried. "
― W.H. Auden , The Dyer's Hand
20
" Are you using me simply as a vulgar tool? Don't you care for me the least little bit? Let me suggest that for a girl in your-your ambiguous position, you are too proud, by several shades. Don't go back to Roger in a hurry! You're not the unspotted maiden you were but two short days ago. Who am I, what am I, to the people whose opinion you care for? A very low fellow, madam; and yet with me you've gone far to cast your lot. If you're not prepared to do more, you should have done less. Nora, Nora," he went on, breaking into a vein none the less revolting for being more ardent, " I confess I don't understand you! But the more you puzzle me the more you fascinate me; and the less you like me the more I love you. What has there been between you and Lawrence? Hang me if I can understand! Are you an angel of purity, or are you the most audacious of flirts? "
