What Hell Looks Like - 2

"The oppressive weight of disaster and tragedy in our lives does not arise from a high percentage of evil among the sum total of all acts, but from the extraordinary power of exceedingly rare incidents of depravity....In an...utterly tragic principle regulating the structure of nearly all complex systems, building up must be accomplished step by step, whereas destruction need occupy but an instant."

-Steven Jay Gould, reflecting on 9/11, Globe and Mail, Thursday, September20/01

"...it is hope that those who take up permanent residence in hell must first of all abandon."

"The really significant events of human life are hidden from view when they occur....But there is still a difference between seeing only [forebodings of disaster] and seeing in it the eclipsing shadow of a power that is still fighting for us."

–Northrop Frye