“Sit down, servant of Satan! I love you. Let us weep over the sins of humanity—weep in despair!” “Let us weep,” I say. “Swallow the tears of sin.”

Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky, Roadside Picnic [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]

Hermetic quote Strugatsky Roadside Picnic sit down servant satan love you let us weep sins humanity despair swallow tears sin

Consider also:

  1. “Put in the context of global fascism, we could end up being one of the last wee bastions of a progressive culture abjected as decadence by the reactionaries, a bit of a heaven in a world going to hell. “
  2. A.D.D.: Adolescent Demo Division
  3. “I couldn’t see any sense in pretending that life was not full of horrors. Death and trousers are facts in nature; and merely to avoid reference to them or to invent euphemisms for them does not alter their character.”
  4. “Real sorrow, the sorrow which comes from the death of dear ones, or some great cross well borne, you need not forget. But think of these things as sent to enrich your nature, and to make you more human and sympathetic. You are missing them if you permit yourself instead to grow melancholy and irritable.”
  5. “Night came upon me thus–a wizard hand Grasping with silence the reluctant land. Through night I clomb–behind me grew the light Reflected in the portal of the night. I reached the crest at dawn–pallid I stand, Uncomprehending of the sudden sight. The river and the bridge! The river flows, Tears of young orphans for its limpid woes. The red bridge quivers–how my spirit starts, Its seeming glory built of widows’ hearts! And yet I could disdain it–heaven knows I had no dear ones for their counterparts.