The Man in the High Castle (Penguin Modern Classics)

He was obsessed with the idea that the universe was only apparently real, an illusion behind which the truth might dwell.

He could recognize it as Hexagram Fifteen. Ch’ien. Modesty. Ah. The

all connected in this moment of casting the yarrow stalks to select the exact wisdom appropriate in a book begun in the thirtieth century B.C.

Which are you? he asked the silver squiggle. Dark dead yin or brilliant living yang?

‘It does not have wabi,’ Paul said, ‘nor could it ever. But –’ He touched the pin with his nail. ‘Robert, this object has wu.’

It is therapeutic to meet these people who have intimidated you. And to discover what they are really like. Then the intimidation goes.

Secretaries, he thought acidly, read that junk, at home in bed at night. It stimulates them. Instead of the real thing. Which they’re afraid of. But of course really crave.

What they say is true: your powers of imitation are immense. Apple pie, Coca-Cola, stroll after the movie, Glenn Miller … you could paste together out of tin and rice paper a complete artificial

You and I – we have no awareness of the vast number of uneducated. They can obtain from mould-produced identical objects a joy which would be denied to us.