Maybe it really is as simple as this:  "Here  --  we'll put you in the retarded box, and put a sign on you saying 'Beware of the Retard.'  That way, everybody will know who you are."

Welcome to the new world. Just like the old world, only harder.

"Is that what this is?" he wondered, Just one more run through the annealing-oven? Was this one enough, or do I need more?"

A practical question:

If the earth was flat, and you fell off of the edge, how would you get back on?

Or to put it another way, how do you get back from the Phantom Zone?

An even better question:

If you do return from the Phantom Zone, will you remember how to behave in this world?

Welcome to the wrong.

Ah, yes, but perhaps it's a new kind of wrong.

That moment when you discover that the childish and embarrassing things that you thought you were doing inside your head are actually clearly visible to everybody around you.

This isn't life. This is an empty building with people in it.

Ah, what do we know of this foolish universe? We ourselves are the fools.

Welcome to the Kingdom of Infinite Wrong.

Intelligence and grace>>>>>craziness and spite.

The universal language of nothingness.

By convention, we are all distinct individuals.

By convention, we find that convention acceptable.

The first rule of this place is silence.

The second rule of this place is silence.

The third rule of this place is silence.

What is the fourth rule?

The cage is not the jaguar.

The jaguar is not the cage.

Neither heaven nor sky above, neither hell nor earth below.

"Expect?" he thought, "It isn't even a matter of expectation.  I have simply come to the land where there is neither heaven nor sky above, neither hell nor earth below."

The cubicle in which I work is not my home, and I will not pretend that it is.  My home is in other people's hearts, and if I have failed to make a home for myself here, it is a failure of the heart.

"You imagine yourself to be cruel," he replied, "but I have never seen anything but fear and lonliness  --  that, and the belief that the world is a cruel place."

The moment when you realize not only that you have nothing, but that there is nothing to be had.

In a world where love is not possible, everything is s substitute, and nothing has substance or value.

What goes on in our heads may be nothing more than brain-chemistry and raw experience, but we are the ones experiencing it, and that makes all the difference in the world.

"This is a damn sad world," he said,  "but it's the only one we've got, so we might as well have a party."

"Am I," he wondered, "the stupidest creature in the universe, or is there something that manages to be even dumber?  A virus, maybe  --  a virus that isn't smart enough to have a protein coat.  Stupid thing."

An "acceptable" amount of damage to the heart, I suppose, is that which it can sustain without actually being destroyed.

What if this is all that is possible?  What if the world or I have changed so much that I can expect nothing better, nothing more?

I am sitting in an otherwise empty room in an otherwise empty building in an otherwise empty universe.  All objects, situations, and events are therefor without significance or value.

Nowhere negates all somewheres.

The most overwhelming kind of nothingness imaginable is an emotional vacuum.

And what then of the moment when you say to yourself, "Only and idiot would do what I am about to do," when in fact, you are about to eat lunch, or something equally normal?  In subtle things, it is by intent alone that we may know if we are being foolish.

It is difficult to escape from one's own lack of common sense.

Emotional starvation produces grotesque and even terrifying aberrations of behavior.

If one's own heart is a half-mystery, what can one know about anyone else?  Or is it all just stories, layers of stories, and stories about stories?

Are we just sad islands, then  --  lonely and desolate rocks in a cold sea, with gray water and gray sky our only comfort?

To open up to another person is not just a leap of faith  --  it is an ongoing struggle against fear.  To exist, one must be brave.

How do you communicate with someone who is too frightened to speak?  The fear itself is contagious, and you may too easily become infected.

It is much easier to accept the abstract possibility of an indifferent and unresponsive universe that it is to accept being surrounded by indifferent and unresponsive people.

I do not believe that the universe is inherently evil, but that skepticism may itself be a kind of faith.

The walls of the heart are not impermeable; if you try to keep it empty for too long, sorrow and fear will seep in, until you imagine that there is nothing else with which it could be filled.

In my cubicle, I feel as if I am an animal being quarantined for reasons which I do not understand, and all I can think is, Break out. Contaminate them all, Infect everyone with your touch!

But do I feel more like this:

Speed -- Go! Go! Heaven

What do you do, then, with those moments when, without there being obvious, identifiable constraints on your actions, nothing seems possible?

It hardly makes sense to complain, and in any event, complaints are rarely worthwhile.

A brisk and businesslike plan of action means nothing, when you cannot even characterize the situation, let alone identify those elements which would lend themselves to action.

It is, I suppose, always possible to say, Hey, world, Kiss my ass! But then again, if you do that, the world is going to know that you're really just begging for it to notice you.

Like the silence that sits at the center of a thunderclap.

I have spent too much time in empty and silent places.

I guess that I have always dreaded the possibility of being alone in a blank, empty world made up of structural material and little else -- like a new building with no people in it. Gray walls, with the promise of nothing but more gray.

We were not born to live inside this place. But just being here makes it hard to imagine that we were ever born at all.

Thought Experiment

Subtract everything from your life which is not directly connected to your inner self or your personal relationships.

Look at what that leaves. Are you happy with what you see?

Subtract again. This time, take away those things which are only symbolic of relationships -- the ones that you let slip by the first time because you weren't willing to admit that they were just symbols, and not part of a genuine connection with another person.

Now what is left?

Subtract again. Take away everything that represents a relationship which you hoped at one time would become real, but which did not.

What does that leave?

Keep subtracting.

Keep subtracting.

Keep subtracting.

Keep doing it until all that remains are actual connections with actual people, and the true core (to the degree that you can recognize such a thing) of yourself.

Now -- are you rich or poor? If you cannot honestly say that you are rich, what will you do to remedy your poverty?

If you try to survive on a diet of symbols, your heart will break, and you will starve.

If you try to survive on a diet of dust, you will wither inside until you come to understand that the dust which you eat is from your own stale and long-dried-out tears.