Abstractions, Within Abstractions, Within Abstractions

In the years before the fire horse arrived my readers complained that my writing was too dense.

In the years after the coming of the fire horse my writing became so dense and encoded even I could not read it and could not therefore envision just where it came from.

But that is neither here, nor over there, as the best writers have always written in carefully encoded metaphors which practically no one could comprehend.

I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use — silence, exile, and cunning.

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Don't forget the real business of war is buying and selling. … The true war is a celebration of markets.