P's 3 Women Quotes

“It is incontestable that the reality and credibility of the world — and therefore its equilibrium — rests largely in peoples' names. Upon waking each morning, we all confusedly feel the need to confirm that today's world is the same as yesterday's. This comfort can be found in the newspapers, through the names of people who continue to say, do, and write the very same things. The need for this reassurance is so urgent that it leads to exaggerated illusions. Our collective impression is that the dead under the heading 'Obituaries' are always the same, unless at that moment we have some friend or relation who is very sick. When we go out, doormen, newspaper boys, and colleagues at work call us by our names, and they haven't changed theirs. Nor have the names of third parties to whom one necessarily alludes in everyday conversation altered.”
― Paulo Emílio Sales Gomes, P's 3 Women