Cloud Atlas

by David Mitchell

A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.

Any stage may be sabotaged. The world’s Alberto Grimaldis can fight scrutiny by burying truth in committees, dullness, and misinformation, or by intimidating the scrutinizers. They can extinguish awareness by dumbing down education, owning TV stations, paying ‘guest fees’ to leader writers, or just buying the media up. The media—and not just The Washington Post—is where democracies conduct their civil wars.”

A duplicitous archivist wouldn’t be much use to future historians,

ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only “rights,” the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful.

Once any tyranny becomes accepted as ordinary, according to Veronica, its victory is assured.

“Another war is always coming, Robert. They are never properly extinguished. What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, or actual violence is the instrument of this dreadful will.

science devises ever bloodier means of war until humanity’s powers of destruction overcome our powers of creation and our civilization drives itself to extinction.

In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.

Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president’s pen or a vainglorious general’s sword.