“The ideal of brotherhood of man, the building of the Just City, is one that cannot be discarded without lifelong feelings of disappointment and loss. But, if we are to live in the real world, discard it we must. Its very nobility makes the results of its breakdown doubly horrifying, and it breaks down, as it always will, not by some external agency but because it cannot work.”
—Kingsley Amis (1922–1995)
“In writing these Tales ... at long intervals, I have kept the book-unity always in mind ... with reference to its effect as part of a whole.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)