“They think they’ll find another way. I’m not so sure. It seems like her book views immortality as a dangerous desire.”

Physical immortalists today, those who think science will find a way to keep us young forever, would call Hanaya Yanagihara scenario the Tithonus error.

The military-industrial complex lubricates the mass-agriculture system with fossil fuels.

No one wants to live forever if it means becoming increasingly decrepit.

This is a comment on fear. Today it’s like ‘They’re going to bomb the New York subway and there’s the avian flu and 50 million of us are going to die.’

Like our ancestors, we act in ways that will bemuse future societies.

We’ve also always hoped that there might be a way to avoid dying.

If manufacturers are so sure there is nothing wrong with genetically modified foods, pesticides and cloned meats, they should have no problems labeling them as such.

Not everyone wants to live forever, but every culture has always desired immortality in one way or another.

Humans have always believed in the possibility of another life, of a second act.

Tons of heavy metals and other hazardous, even radioactive, waste is sprayed on American agricultural soil.

The term “cultural-universal” is a complicated one, but I’ve heard it come up on numerous occasions while researching immortality.

After all, cancer will kill one in every two men and one in every three women now alive, reports Samuel Epstein, chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition.

We wanted to make fun of that fear-based culture we’ve been plunged into. And Halloweens the perfect metaphor for fear.

One way or another we are living the stories planted in us early or along the way, or we are also living the stories we planted – knowingly or unknowingly – in ourselves. We live stories that either give our lives meaning or negate it with meaninglessness. If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives.’

I don’t want to play out of another man’s bag.

I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground Upon my flesh t’inflict another wound. Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death With holy Paul; lest it be thought the breath Of discontent; or that these prayers be For weariness of life, not love of thee.

And culture is – each of us – is like one pearl added to another to make a chain. We each contribute to the other. And that’s all right. But once you’re on your own, do that which comes from within. And I feel this very strongly.

There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.

I listened, vaguely knowing now that I had committed some awful wrong that I could not undo, that I had uttered words I could not recall even though I ached to nullify them.

The greatest act of faith we are capable of is that of loving another more than we love ourselves, and occasionally we can be quite good at it.

Thomas Jefferson-another gorgeous white boy who would not have been interested in me. This was my problem in a nutshell. To get some play in Charlottesville, you had to be either a Martha Jefferson or a Sally Hemings.