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In the end, living is defined by dying.

Bernard Beckett

In the end, living is defined by dying. Book-ended by oblivion, we are caught in the vice of terror, squeezed to bursting by the approaching end. Fear is ever-present, waiting to be called to the surface. Change brought fear, and fear brought destruction.
BERNARD BECKETT

Book Dying Waiting
I write with teenagers in mind.
BERNARD BECKETT

Mind Teenager Writing
Consciousness is the feel of accessing memory.
BERNARD BECKETT

Consciousness Feels Memories
Which came first, the mind or the idea of the mind? Have you never wondered? They arrived together. The mind is an idea.
BERNARD BECKETT

Ideas Mind Together Wonderful
And it is fragile. It can be blackened by fear, and superstition. By the year 2050, when the conflict began, the world had fallen upon fearful, superstitious times.
BERNARD BECKETT

Belief Fallen Fragile Problem Superstitious Upon
Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence.
BERNARD BECKETT

Belief Fear Optimistic Problem Years
Thought, like any parasite, cannot exist without a compliant host.
BERNARD BECKETT

Compilant Host Parasites
Superstition is the need to view the world in terms of simple cause and effect.
BERNARD BECKETT

Needs Simple Views
I try not to be surprised. Surprise is the public face of a mind that has been closed.
BERNARD BECKETT

Faces Mind Surprise Trying
Science is a little bit more than a wonderful way of modelling and predicting; its a wonderful technical abstraction. I think science is a really wonderful technical abstraction.
BERNARD BECKETT

Abstraction Littles Think Thinking Way
I cant see any great evidence that humans have any ability to access anything other than the material world. Beyond that, who knows, but theres no good evidence that would take me to any particular belief.
BERNARD BECKETT

Ability Belief Beyond Evidence Human World
Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism.
BERNARD BECKETT

Curiosity Optimism Superstitions
This is always the problem with building heroes. To keep them pure, we must build them stupid. The world is built on compromise and uncertainty, and such a place is too complex for heroes to flourish.
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Compromise Hero Stupid World
A society that fears knowledge is a society that fears itself.
BERNARD BECKETT

Fear Knowledge Society
In the end, living is defined by dying.
BERNARD BECKETT

Death Dying Ends
I just love the idea that people disappear into the story for a while. You grab a book, and you want to get back to it, and your life becomes a bit of an interruption. I would love readers to feel like that.
BERNARD BECKETT

Book Ideas Interruption People Reader
The more the media peddled fear, the more the people lost the ability to believe in one another. For every new ill that befell them, the media created an explanation, and the explanation always had a face and a name.
BERNARD BECKETT

Believe Media Names
I cannot choose to ignore this feeling, of life slowly bleeding out of me. I cannot ignore the fact that life only makes sense to me when I see a smile, or feel another hand in mine.
BERNARD BECKETT

Bleeding Feelings Hands
Many scholars have complained of our tendency to see history only in conflicts, but I am not convinced they are right. It is in conflict that our values are exposed.
BERNARD BECKETT

Conflict History Tendencies
Are you saying a society wracked by plague is preferable to one wracked by indifference?
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Indifference Plague Saying Wracked
The mind is not a machine, it is an idea. And the Idea resists all attempts to control it.
BERNARD BECKETT

Ideas Machine Mind
The people came to fear even their closest neighbors. At the level of the individual, the community, and the nation, people sought signs of others’ ill intentions; and everywhere they looked, they found them, for this is what looking does.
BERNARD BECKETT

Community Everyone Intention Level Nation Neighbour People
The only thing binding individuals together is ideas. Ideas mutate and spread; they change their hosts as much as their hosts change them.
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Change Host Ideas Mutate Together
Unable to attribute misfortune to chance, unable to accept their ultimate insignificance within the greater scheme, the people looked for monsters in their midst.
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Chance Fear Monsters People Scheme Unable
Our world is limited by the machinery we carry. Its very different to the 18th and 19th century Enlightenment scientists who were mostly men of God and thought it was their quest to uncover Gods great plan.
BERNARD BECKETT

Century Different Men Our Uncover World
… from our vantage point it is now clear that the only thing the population had to fear was fear itself.
BERNARD BECKETT

Fear Population Vantage Point

In the end, living is defined by dying.

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In the end, living is defined by dying.

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