Стеклянный Джек

– У меня во рту пересохло, – сообщила она. – И мне надо облегчиться.

– Сдаётся мне, ситуация парадоксальная.

‘We do not believe that time is an illusion! Rather, we believe that time only existed for thirty-three years, when God himself fell into the temporal element. Time ended when he ascended to heaven.’

‘It didn’t exist before?’

‘No – when Christ was born in Bethlehem, so too was the whole world. His birth was the creation. Of course, the cosmos was created with the traces of its imagined past: fossils were created inside the rocks at that moment; the memories of past time, archaeological records and books – like the Talmud. But none of this actually happened. It was all just an imaginary backstory, embedded within the world when it was created.’

We used to think God made us in His image, and that meant we were special, until science told us we just evolved that way because it suited a landscape of trees and savannas. That's what science does: it says, look again and you'll see you're not special. But economics? Economics is also a science. And what does it say? ... It says: there is energy, and there are raw materials, and that's the cosmos. But without us the energy is random and the raw material is inert. It's only labour that makes the cosmos come alive. It's only us that make economics happen at all. And that makes us special.

[..]Улановы с помпой сошли с небес и даже воздали мне похвалу:

Мол, я открыл способ внушить принцип Закона отпетому злу

И превратить злодеев в трудяг, привычных к мирному ремеслу.

Я же доволен солидной прибавкой в бюджете.Мне дали Серебряную Звезду – есть чем гордиться в расцвете лет:

С элитой я на короткой ноге, меня как равного принял свет.

Из всех советов я дам лишь один, но это самый мудрый совет:

Не будьте бедными, бедные сукины дети.Тюремные баллады. Кодекс Улановых

– Ты что-то скрываешь, Джек, – сказала Диана.

– Неужели? Да, эта стратегия обычно работает.