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In the most commonplace, tiresome, ridiculous, malicious, coarse, crude, or even crooked people or events I had to seek out rare things, good things, comic things, and I did so.

 

William Saroyan

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To the divine providence it has seemed good to prepare in the world to come for the righteous good things, which the unrighteous shall not enjoy; and for the wicked evil things, by which the good shall not be tormented. But as for the good things of this life, and its ills, God has willed that these should be common to both; that we might not too eagerly covet the things which wicked men are seen equally to enjoy, nor shrink with an unseemly fear from the ills which even good men often suffer.
There is, too, a very great difference in the purpose served both by those events which we call adverse and those called prosperous. For the good man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills; but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world’s happiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness.

 

Augustine of Hippo

 

Dark things have always existed but they used to be in a proper balance with good when life was slower. People lived in towns and small farms where they knew everybody and people didn't move around so much so things were a little more peaceful. There were things that they were afraid of for sure, but now it's accelerated to where the anxiety level of the people is in the stratosphere. TV sped things up and caused people to hear way more bad news. Mass media overloaded people with more than they could handle, and drugs also had a lot to do with it. With drugs people can get so rich and whacked out and they've opened up a whole weird world. These things have created a modern kind of fear in America.

 

David Lynch

 

The Grand Inquisitor explains that you have to create mysteries because otherwise the common people will be able to understand things. They have to be subordinated so you have to make things look mysterious and complicated. That's the test of the intellectual. It's also good for them: then you're an important person, talking big words which nobody can understand. Sometimes it gets kind of comical, say in post-modern discourse. Especially around Paris, it has become a comic strip, I mean it's all gibberish. But it's very inflated, a lot of television cameras, a lot of posturing. They try to decode it and see what is the actual meaning behind it, things that you could explain to an eight-year old child. There's nothing there. But these are the ways in which contemporary intellectuals, including those on the Left, create great careers for themselves, power for themselves, marginalize people, intimidate people and so on.

 

Noam Chomsky

 

There's no question that at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate. And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn't trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them. I found that I felt compelled to seek God's forgiveness. Not God's understanding, but God's forgiveness. I do believe in a forgiving God. And I think most people, deep down in their hearts hope there's a forgiving God. Somebody once said that when we're young, we seek justice, but as we get older, we seek mercy.

 

Newt Gingrich

 

But I really, since I exist, at all, I believe that it's possible for people...I've lived through impossible situations. So I believe in it. I just believe, and that's the magic...That's the whole thing, you talk about magic that there's to believe in, and it is there. But most people don't really believe in it. And I refuse, like, since I'm still alive and done the things I've done and seen things and understood things as far as I have, and I am alive, I mean physically intact. When I shouldn't be, according to medical reports and so forth. I mean I should be, not here. That's all there is to it. So the magic's working and it's a rare situation.

 

Edie Sedgwick