Urban spaces have spirits, and cities have souls. Some are dangerous, menacing, but also seductive; others are marked by beauty and excess; others again by their dreariness or spookiness. These are contagious qualities that are said to seep into the character of the people living in such cities. […] Some urban spirits are global in reach, others mainly local or regional. They are reproduced in everyday stereotypes and mythologies. None of these are of course true in any sociological sense but the proliferating fantasmic and mythical qualities of cities and urban spaces are effective realities that shape the behaviour, cosmologies and desires of people in cities, or of those who visit them, imagine them, or describe them in narrative or imagery.

- Urban Charisma, Thomas Blom Hansen and Oskar Verkaaik

My waiter friend, Laurent, working at the Brasserie Champs du Mars near the Eiffel Tower, one night while serving me Une Grande Beer, explained his life. “I work from ten to twelve hours, sometimes fourteen,” he says, “and then at midnight I go dancing, dancing, dancing until four or five in the morning and go to bed and sleep until ten and then up, up and to work by eleven and another ten or twelve or sometimes fifteen hours of work.”

“How can you do that?” I ask.

“Easily,” he says. “To be asleep is to be dead. It is like death. So we dance, we dance so as not to be dead. We do not want that.”

“How old are you?” I ask, at last. “Twenty-three,” he says. “Ah,” I say and take his elbow gently. “Ah. Twenty-three, is it?”

“Twenty-three,” he says, smiling. “And you?”

“Seventy-six,” I say. “And I do not want to be dead, either. But I am not twenty-three. How can I answer? What do I do?”

“Yes,” says Laurent, still smiling and innocent, “what do you do at three in the morning?”

“Write,” I say, at last.

“Write!” Laurent says, astonished. “Write?”

“So as not to be dead,” I say. “Like you.”

“Me?”

“Yes,” I say, smiling now, myself. “At three in the morning, I write, I write, I write!”

The Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury

There nearly always is a method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical.

- G. K. Chesterton

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."

- G. K. Chesterton

Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and adventures are the shadow truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes and forgotten.

- Neil Gaiman

There is a famous story told in Chassidic literature that addresses this very question. The Master teaches the student that God created everything in the world to be appreciated, since everything is here to teach us a lesson.

One clever student asks “What lesson can we learn from atheists? Why did God create them?”

The Master responds “God created atheists to teach us the most important lesson of them all — the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs and act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that god commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his acts are based on an inner sense of morality. And look at the kindness he can bestow upon others simply because he feels it to be right.”

“This means,” the Master continued “that when someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say ‘I pray that God will help you.’ Instead for the moment, you should become an atheist, imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’”

- Tales of Hasidim Vol. 2 by Martin Buber

In the world of film noir, style becomes paramount; it is all that separates one from the meaninglessness ... critics have always been slow on the uptake when it comes to visual style. Like its protagonists, film noir is more interested in style than theme, whereas American critics have been traditionally more interested in theme than style.

- Paul Schrader

"Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions."

- Susan Cain
TED: The Power of Introverts

"Because loyalty is not to be spoken of and honour is to be endured. Whilst courage is to be survived. These virtues belong to silence."

- Malazan Books of the Fallen (Steven Erickson)