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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

I write with teenagers in mind.
BERNARD BECKETT

Mind Teenager Writing
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
The mind is not a machine, it is an idea. And the Idea resists all attempts to control it.
BERNARD BECKETT

Ideas Machine Mind
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
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
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
Superstition is the need to view the world in terms of simple cause and effect.
BERNARD BECKETT

Needs Simple Views
In the end, living is defined by dying.
BERNARD BECKETT

Death Dying Ends
The only thing binding individuals together is ideas. Ideas mutate and spread; they change their hosts as much as their hosts change them.
BERNARD BECKETT

Change Host Ideas Mutate Together
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
A society that fears knowledge is a society that fears itself.
BERNARD BECKETT

Fear Knowledge Society
Thought, like any parasite, cannot exist without a compliant host.
BERNARD BECKETT

Compilant Host Parasites
I try not to be surprised. Surprise is the public face of a mind that has been closed.
BERNARD BECKETT

Faces Mind Surprise Trying
Are you saying a society wracked by plague is preferable to one wracked by indifference?
BERNARD BECKETT

Indifference Plague Saying Wracked
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
Unable to attribute misfortune to chance, unable to accept their ultimate insignificance within the greater scheme, the people looked for monsters in their midst.
BERNARD BECKETT

Chance Fear Monsters People Scheme Unable

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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