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Quote: Ye Children of Men


Title: The Children of Men
Author: PD James
Page: 194

Lord, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: thou art God from everlasting, and world without end. Thou turnest man to destruction: again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday: seeing that is past as a watch in the night.

This is the first few verses of Psalm 90. Nice to have a real scripture quote. Unlike Ezekiel 25:17 in Pulp Fiction.

Quote: Senility in Old Age


Title: The Children of Men
Author: PD James
Page: 103

Odd, isn’t it? Almost the whole of modern medical research is dedicated to improving health in old age and extending the human life-span and we get more senility, not less. Extending it for what? We give them drugs to improve short-term memory, drugs to raise mood, drugs to increase appetite. They don’t need anything to make them sleep, that’s all they seem to do.

We work so hard to lengthen life but at what cost?

Vocabulary: anomie


Title: The Children of Men
Author: PD James
Sentence: The mass emigrations, the great internal tumults, the religious and tribal wars of the 1990s have given way to a universal anomie which leaves crops unsown and unharvested, animals neglected, starvation, civil war, the grabbing from the weak by the strong.
Page: 98

Word: anomie
Definition:
  • social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values;
  • personal unrest, alienation, and uncertainty that comes from a lack of purpose or ideals.
  • Etymology: French anomie, from Middle French, from Greek anomia lawlessness, from anomos lawless, from a- + nomos law.
   Source: Merriam-Webster Online

This is the 3rd word in less than 100 pages I have had to look up. I am not sure how much is due to the difference between American English and English English or how much is just due to the authors style.

Quote: The Illusion of Democracy


Title: The Children of Men
Author: PD James
Page: 89

The system has the merit of simplicity and gives the illusion of democracy to people who no longer have the energy to care how or by whom they are governed as long as they get what the Warden has promised: freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom from boredom.

How close are we coming to this already? Freedom from fear is the current goal, soon probably freedom from boredom.

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