Nick

“Conspiracy theories, after all, feed on historical amnesia. They depend on your belief that what is happening now has never happened before. They present repetition as novelty. When a moral panic dissipates, its traces are forgotten in a forceful act of collective amnesia. If you are going to make sense of the history, you have to stick with the sense of déjà vu; you have to run in circles if you’re going to get anywhere.”
― Colin Dickey, Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy

“At the quantum level our universe can be seen as an indeterminate place, predictable in a statistical way only when you employ large enough numbers. Between that universe and a relatively predictable one where the passage of a single planet can be timed to a picosecond, other forces come into play. For the in-between universe where we find our daily lives, that which you believe is a dominant force. Your beliefs order the unfolding of daily events. If enough of us believe, a new thing can be made to exist. Belief structure creates a filter through which chaos is sifted into order. —ANALYSIS OF THE TYRANT, THE TARAZA FILE: BG ARCHIVES”
― Frank Herbert, Heretics of Dune

“Upon entering the hotel room and glancing at its occupant, Doctor Lenardi assumed that hearty, cheerful manner which is characteristic of all physicians once they have abandoned hope.”
― Charles Beaumont, Perchance to Dream