"If the suffering of the world were, as it could be imagined to be, less extreme, if
boredom and simple wordly disappointments were our gravest trials, and if, which is harder
to conceive, we grieved little at any bereavement and went to death as to sleep, our whole
morality might be immensely, perhaps totally different. That this world is a place of horror
must affect every serious artist and thinker, darkening his reflection, ruining his
system, sometimes actually driving him mad. Any seriousness avoids this fact at its peril,
and the great ones who have seemed to neglect it have only done so in appearance…
This is the planet where cancer reigns, where people regularly and automatically and
almost without comment die like flies from floods and famine and disease, where people
fight each other with hideous weapons to whose effects even nightmares cannot do justice,
where men terrify and torture each other and spend whole lifetimes telling lies out of
fear. This is where we live."
--The Black Prince.
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