Everything was there, it is simply that there was no clerk capable of making an inventory of all the constituents; but the realm that existed once — once and once only — had disappeared for ever, ground into infinitesimal pieces by the endless momentum of chaos within which crystals of order survived, the chaos that consisted of an indifferent and unstoppable traffic between things. It ground the empire into carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur, it took its delicate fibres and unstitched them till they were dispersed and had ceased to exist, because they had been consumed by the force of some incomprehensibly distant edict, which must also consume this book, here, now, at the full stop, after the last word.

-László Krasznahorkai, The Melancholy of Resistance

“The Caucasus” by Shaya Bronshtein (1962)

New Year in a psychiatric hospital, Moscow, 1988.

Zmyainy Tsar (Serpent King) by Valery Slauk (b. 1947)

Salvador Dali, can be seen deeply engaged in his painting here. This painting is called “The Face of War” and this picture was taken in 1941.

Louis Ferdinand Celine

Sailing into Yokohama Harbor, Japan, ca. 1920

Compared to the agony of the rich, that of poor people is like a bed of flowers. Death has gathered into itself all the terrors and sufferings of palaces. To die in luxury is to die a million times.

- Emil Cioran

A Disguised secret witness testifies in a courtroom ona drug case. Washington, 30 April 1952

“You utilitarians love everything useful only as a vehicle for your inclinations.”

—F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, §174 (edited excerpt)

Rinko Kawauchi

“In the end one loves one’s desire and not what is desired.”

—F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, §175.

Robert De Niro, Giorgio Armani and Martin Scorsese.