High Masculine Tones

The mind is dealing with the world but is always working on itself. The mind takes materials from the world…
-- Robert J. Lifton

There are kinds of information, sometimes bare scraps and bits, that instantly arrange themselves into coherent, easily perceived patterns, and one either acknowledges those patterns, or one does not. For most of my adult life, I chose not to recognize those patterns, although they were the patterns of my own life as much as Wade’s. Once I chose to acknowledge them, however, they came rushing toward me, one after the other, until at last the story I am telling here presented itself to me in its entirety.
-- Russell Banks

We know more than we can use. Look at all this stuff I’ve got in my head: rockets and Venetian churches, David Bowie and Diderot, nuoc man and Big Macs, sunglasses and orgasms.
-- Susan Sontag