The Mars Room

by Rachel Kushner

The thing is you keep existing whether you have a plan to do so or not, until you don’t exist, and then your plans are meaningless.

If his students could learn to think well, to enjoy reading books, some part of them would be uncaged.

The guards made everything more difficult, with their hatred of the women, and their hostility toward free-world staff like Gordon.

A man could say every day that he wanted to change his life, was going to change it, and every day the lament became merely a part of the life he was already living,

so that the desire for change was in fact a kind of stasis that allowed the unchanged life to continue, because at least the man knew to disapprove of it, which reassured him not all was lost.

Things are more complicated than some can admit. People are stupider and less demonic than some can admit.

“It’s okay to make a promise,” London said to Gordon, as if summarizing for the teacher how life actually worked, “but it’s not always a good idea to keep one.”