“Think of them all,” said Truman. “Cities,
manganese mines, governments, clubs. India, China, Russia — make you wonder
what it all means. Cotton, iron, steel … where does it all lead?”
“All parts of an unco-ordinated pattern.
Man as a person looking for what I think I’ve found. The search throws up
bright bits of gold and information which catch his attention and prevent him
from looking deeper into himself. Yes, a staggering spectacle of a genius
engaged in a wasteful way of living. And yet every activity leading back like
an arrow on the map to central metaphysical problems of the self. The wars of
factories, of diplomats, of concepts—all hopelessly entangled in the opposites
that created them.”
‘Could you teach them any different?” Truman
spoke piously, enviously, as if there were nothing he himself might wish to do
more than to alter humanity. “I would not try: any more than I try to alter
you.”
“What would you do then?”
“Nothing. Pay my rent like everyone else.”
Quotation from: The Dark Labyrinth by Lawrence Durrell
