“
The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.
”
”
David Foster Wallace
“
I had to leave my debit card at home when I went into a bookstore or else I would drain my account.
”
”
Chelsea M. Cameron (My Favorite Mistake (My Favorite Mistake, #1))
“
I’m only marginally qualified to be giving advice at all. My body mass index is certainly not ideal, I frequently use my debit card to buy things that cost less than three dollars because I never have cash on me, and my bedroom is so untidy it looks like vandals ransacked the Anthropologie Sale section. I’m kind of a mess.
”
”
Mindy Kaling (Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns))
“
The paths to liberation are numerous, but the bank along the way is always the same, the Bank of Karma, where the liberation account of each of us is credited or debited depending on our actions.
”
”
Yann Martel (Life of Pi)
“
All good people agree,
And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
As only a sort of They!
”
”
Rudyard Kipling (Debits And Credits)
“
Rule #1: You may bring only what fits in your backpack. Don’t try to fake it with a purse or a carry-on.
Rule #2: You may not bring guidebooks, phrase books, or any kind of foreign language aid. And no journals.
Rule #3: You cannot bring extra money or credit/debit cards, travelers’ checks, etc. I’ll take care of all that.
Rule #4: No electronic crutches. This means no laptop, no cell phone, no music, and no camera. You can’t call home or communicate with people in the U.S. by Internet or telephone. Postcards and letters are acceptable and encouraged.
That’s all you need to know for now.
”
”
Maureen Johnson (13 Little Blue Envelopes (Little Blue Envelope, #1))
“
Freuchen tells how one day, after coming home hungry from an unsuccessful walrus-hunting expedition, he found one of the successful hunters dropping off several hundred pounds of meat. He thanked him profusely. The man objected indignantly:
"Up in our country we are human!" said the hunter. "And since we are human we help each other. We don't like to hear anybody say thanks for that. What I get today you may get tomorrow. Up here we say that by gifts one makes slaves and by whips one makes dogs.
... The refusal to calculate credits and debits can be found throughout the anthropological literature on egalitarian hunting societies. Rather than seeing himself as human because he could make economic calculations, the hunter insisted that being truly human meant refusing to make such calculations, refusing to measure or remember who had given what to whom, for the precise reason that doing so would inevitably create a world where we began "comparing power with power, measuring, calculating" and reducing each other to slaves or dogs through debt. It's not that he, like untold millions of similar egalitarian spirits throughout history, was unaware that humans have a propensity to calculate. If he wasn't aware of it, he could not have said what he did. Of course we have a propensity to calculate. We have all sorts of propensities. In any real-life situation, we have propensities that drive us in several different contradictory directions simultaneously. No one is more real than any other. The real question is which we take as the foundation of our humanity, and therefore, make the basis of our civilization.
”
”
David Graeber (Debt: The First 5,000 Years)
“
I didn't care about embarrassing myself further. What was one more debit of mortification when my balance sheet was already in the red by hundreds of thousands?
”
”
Penny Reid (Neanderthal Seeks Human (Knitting in the City, #1))
“
A borrower who doesn't returns is a beggar.
”
”
Amit Kalantri
“
The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.
”
”
David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest)
“
For years I viewed my interaction with the Bible as a debit account: I had a need, so I went to the Bible to withdraw an answer. But we do much better to view our interaction with the Bible as a savings account: I stretch my understanding daily, I deposit what I glean, and I patiently wait for it to accumulate in value, knowing that one day I will need to draw on it.
”
”
Jen Wilkin (Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds)
“
When reconciling great hatred there will some remain. How can it be made good? Therefore the wise man accepts the debit side of the account and does not have to enforce payment from others.
”
”
Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching Taoism Ultimate Collection)
“
Karma is a balance sheet of life which debits and credit all your deeds.YourWhich is audited by our creator and actions are based on what we accumulated in it.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KARMA)
“
Producing a high body count was crucial for promotion in the officer corps. Many high-level officers established “production quotas” for their units, and systems of “debit” and “credit” to calculate exactly how efficiently subordinate units and middle-management personnel performed. Different formulas were used, but the commitment to war as a rational production process was common to all.11
”
”
Nick Turse (Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam)
“
Its hurtful and wonderful how our jokes survive us.
Since I left home on this journey, I've thought a lot about this-how a big part of any life is about the hows and whys of setting up machinery. it's building systems, devices, motors. Winding up the clockwork of direct debits, configuring newspaper deliveries and anniversaries and photographs and credit card repayments and anecdotes. Starting their engines, setting them in motion and sending them chugging off into the future to do their thing at a regular or irregular intervals. When a person leaves or dies or ends, they leave an afterimage; their outline in the devices they've set up around them. The image fades to the winding down of springs, the slow running out of fuel as the machines of a life lived in certain ways in certain places and from certain angles are shut down or seize up or blink off one by one. It takes time. Sometimes, you come across the dusty lights or electrical hum of someone else's machine, maybe a long time after you ever expected to, still running, lonely in the dark. Still doing its thing for the person who started it up long, long after they've gone.
A man lives so many different lengths of time.
”
”
Steven Hall (The Raw Shark Texts)
“
On a side note, is there any place on earth that sounds like it has a more chill vibe than Hawaiian Brian’s? Or for that matter, is there a chiller name than “Hawaiian Brian”? “Damnit! Hawaiian Brian just stole my debit card and liquidated all my bank accounts!” I can’t ever see someone having to utter that sentence.
”
”
Aziz Ansari (Modern Romance: An Investigation)
“
There are five different prayers: for health, wealth, a death, a birth, a sin. You pick the one you want, punch in the number, then punch in your own number so your account will be debited, and punch in the number of times you want the prayer repeated.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale)
“
When you slander someone [talk negatively about people], you earn a debit in your account and that person will earn a credit. Who would do these kinds of business?
”
”
Dada Bhagwan
“
Karma is the balance sheet of life which debits and credit all your deeds.YourWhich is audited by our creator and actions are based on what we accumulated in it.
”
”
Abhysheq Shukla (KARMA)
“
this nation is both its credits and debits.
”
”
Claudia Rankine (Just Us: An American Conversation)
“
Remember, as you look at yourself, to look kindly, and also remember that you are not balancing a checkbook: anything you see that you don’t like, or that you want to change, is not a debit that you subtract from your virtues. When you learn to reflect on your strengths, it becomes easier to look at your weaknesses with acceptance and compassion. Keep your virtues at their full value and cherish them.
”
”
Dossie Easton (The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love)
“
Let us never weary of repeating, that to think first of the disinherited and sorrowful classes; to relieve, ventilate, enlighten, and love them; to enlarge their horizon to a magnificent extent; to lavish upon them education in every shape; to set them an example of labor, and never of indolence; to lessen the weight of the individual burden by increasing the notion of the universal aim; to limit poverty without limiting wealth; to create vast fields of public and popular activity; to have, like Briareus, a hundred hands to stretch out on all sides to the crushed and the weak; to employ the collective power in the grand task of opening workshops for every arm, schools for every aptitude, and laboratories for every intellect; to increase wages, diminish toil, and balance the debit and credit--that is to say, proportion enjoyment to effort, and supply to demand; in a word, to evolve from the social machine, on behalf of those who suffer and those who are ignorant, more light and more comfort, is (and sympathetic souls must not forget it) the first of brotherly obligations, and (let egotistic hearts learn the fact) the first of political necessities.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Les Misérables)
“
The level of violence finally forced the local paper to do what the local police would not: Talk to the victims. Shaina Perry remembers the punch to her face, blood streaming from a cut over her eye, her backpack with her asthma inhaler, debit card, and cell phone stolen, and then the laughter. They just said “Oh, white girl bleeds a lot,” said Perry, 22, who was attacked at Kilbourn Reservoir Park over the Fourth of July weekend.2
”
”
Colin Flaherty ('White Girl Bleed A Lot': The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It)
“
It takes all my strength to do daily tasks. To some people, I’m just a number. I’m a projected food stamps debit card lifetime member. I’m seen as crazy or insane, but it doesn’t matter. I know I am bigger than my suffering.
”
”
Jacquelyn Nicole Davis (Trace The Grace: A Memoir)
“
...the balance sheet of her life, an endless list of credits and debits, of accomplishments and failures, small acts of kindness and real acts of cruelty. And the tears finally come as she looks away, unable to see this thing to the very end, for she knows without looking of the terrible imbalance, how long ago the credits stopped while the debits of vanity and selfishness run on and on.
”
”
Richard C. Morais (The Hundred-Foot Journey)
“
The reason twenty-nine feet is such a common length for RVs, I presume, is that once a vehicle gets much longer, you need a special permit to drive it. That would mean forms and fees, possibly even background checks. But show up at any RV joint with your thigh stumps lashed to a skateboard, crazily waving your hooks-for-hands, screaming you want that twenty-nine-footer out back for a trip you ain't sayin' where, and all they want to know is: Credit or debit, tiny sir?
”
”
John Jeremiah Sullivan (Pulphead)
“
What?” he asked in a low voice.
“You looked like you spent your last joy bill.”
He hissed, “What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know. I was just trying it out.”
“Well, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t make sense. And anyway, I’ve got plenty of joy bills. Loads.”
Helen said, “What’s happening there on your phone?”
“A very small joy debit.”
His older sister’s smile shone brightly. “You see, it does work. Now, did you or did you not need to get out of that room?”
Gansey inclined his head in slight acknowledgment. Gansey siblings knew each other well.
“You’re so welcome,” Helen said. “Let me know if you need me to write a joy check.”
“I really don’t think it works.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
“
Toddlers walk through life like we all wish we could: confident, demanding, and 100 percent positive that they are the center of the universe. They can kick their father in the testicles and feel nothing. They love to laugh. They love to destroy expensive cosmetics and to fingerpaint with long-wearing lipstick. Toddlers love to render electronic devices useless. They enjoy making debit cards and keys vanish into thin air. They like to permanent marker on shit. Toddlers live that #thuglyfe better than any of us could even try to because toddlers. don’t. give. a. fuck. The quicker you understand that, the better. Repeat after me: Toddlers don’t care and they never did.
”
”
Bunmi Laditan (Toddlers Are A**holes: It's Not Your Fault)
“
Ippolit Matveevich turned even redder, pulled out a tiny notebook, and wrote in a calligraphic hand:
25/4/1927 — rubles issued to Comrade Bender — 8.
Ostap took a look inside the little book.
'Oh-ho! If you've gone ahead and opened a personal account for me, then the least you could do is tally it right. Start up a debit column, start up a credit column. Don't forget to enter the sixty thousand rubles you owe me in the debits, and the vest can go in the credits. The balance is in my favor: 59,992 rubles.
”
”
Ilya Ilf (The Twelve Chairs)
“
After Cosimo de’ Medici took over the family bank in the 1430s, it became the largest in Europe. By managing the fortunes of the continent’s wealthy families, the Medici made themselves the wealthiest of them all. They were innovators in bookkeeping, including the use of debit-and-credit accounting that became one of the great spurs to progress during the Renaissance. By means of payoffs and plotting, Cosimo became the de facto ruler of Florence, and his patronage made it the cradle of Renaissance art and humanism.
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Leonardo da Vinci)
“
Showing off is more ridiculous in instances where the thing that is being shown off was bought on credit.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
GOD don't have any mercy to human being since we generate Debit & Credit account of our own life.
”
”
Hems
“
Merit karma is a credit amount and demerit karma is a debit amount [owe the amount to repay]. One is free to spend his accumulated amount wherever he wants.
”
”
Dada Bhagwan
“
It wasn’t that I truly felt bad that I’d upset my mother—it was more that I hated any debits in her column.
”
”
Gillian Flynn (Sharp Objects)
“
In all your doings and dealings, personal or professional, for selflessness or consideration; exchange goodness of positive vibes. Be a good karmic being.
”
”
Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma (Debit Credit of Life: from the good books of accounts)
“
Goodwill; earned by deeds, not words, weighed by values, not intangibility; same for respect.
”
”
Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma (Debit Credit of Life: from the good books of accounts)
“
I pay bills when the paper they’re printed on turns pink or gets threatening, and if my debit card is still accepted then I feel like I’m winning.
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
“
What was one more debit of mortification when my balance sheet was already in the red
”
”
Penny Reid (Neanderthal Seeks Human (Knitting in the City, #1))
“
Five-Year,” a term given to cash minted before 2023. That was the last year cash was produced without embedded chips that could trace every use of the currency as if it was a debit or credit card.
”
”
Gary A. Ballard (Under the Amoral Brigde)
“
If middle-class society is decaying, if we have got into a blind alley from which we cannot emerge without attacking past institutions with torch and hatchet, it is precisely because we have given too much to counting. It is because we have let ourselves be influenced into giving only to receive. It is because we have aimed at turning society into a commercial company based on debit and credit.
”
”
Pyotr Kropotkin (The Conquest of Bread)
“
I wonder,” said Reginald, “if you have ever walked down the Embankment on a winter night?” “Gracious, no, child! Why do you ask?” “I didn’t; I only wondered. And even your philanthropy, practised in a world where everything is based on competition, must have a debit as well as a credit account. The young ravens cry for food.” “And are fed.” “Exactly. Which presupposes that something else is fed upon.
”
”
Saki (Delphi Complete Works of Saki (Illustrated) (Series Six Book 17))
“
We were born and brought up with the maxim that 'time is money'. We know exactly what money is, but what does the word time mean? The day is made up of twenty-four hours and an infinite number of moments. We need to be aware of those moments and to make the most of them regardless of whether we're busy doing something or merely contemplating life. If we slow down, everything lasts much longer. Of course, that means that washing the dishes might last longer, as might totting up the debits and credits on a balance sheet or checking promissory notes, but why not use that time to think about pleasant things and to feel glad simply to be alive?
”
”
Paulo Coelho (The Witch of Portobello)
“
A denied expectation hurts more than a denied hope, while a fulfilled hope makes us happier than a fulfilled expectation. Hope’s got a higher return on happiness and less debit on denial, it’s just not as measurable. My parents measured.
”
”
Matthew McConaughey (Greenlights)
“
Over the years I have had much occasion to ponder this word, the intelligentsia. We are all very fond of including ourselves in it—but you see not all of us belong. In the Soviet Union this word has acquired a completely distorted meaning. They began to classify among the intelligentsia all those who don't work (and are afraid to) with their hands. All the Party, government, military, and trade union bureaucrats have been included. All bookkeepers and accountants—the mechanical slaves of Debit. All office employees. And with even greater ease we include here all teachers (even those who are no more than talking textbooks and have neither independent knowledge nor an independent view of education). All physicians, including those capable only of making doodles on the patients' case histories. And without the slightest hesitation all those who are only in the vicinity of editorial offices, publishing houses, cinema studios, and philharmonic orchestras are included here, not even to mention those who actually get published, make films, or pull a fiddle bow.
And yet the truth is that not one of these criteria permits a person to be classified in the intelligentsia. If we do not want to lose this concept, we must not devalue it. The intellectual is not defined by professional pursuit and type of occupation. Nor are good upbringing and good family enough in themselves to produce and intellectual. An intellectual is a person whose interests in and preoccupation with the spiritual side of life are insistent and constant and not forced by external circumstances, even flying in the face of them. An intellectual is a person whose thought is nonimitative.
”
”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books III-IV)
“
The worst of what is called good society is not only that it offers us the companionship of people who are unable to win either our praise or our affection, but that it does not allow of our being that which we naturally are; it compels us, for the sake of harmony, to shrivel up, or even alter our shape altogether. Intellectual conversation, whether grave or humorous, is only fit for intellectual society; it is downright abhorrent to ordinary people, to please whom it is absolutely necessary to be commonplace and dull. This demands an act of severe self-denial; we have to forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to become like other people. No doubt their company may be set down against our loss in this respect; but the more a man is worth, the more he will find that what he gains does not cover what he loses, and that the balance is on the debit side of the account; for the people with whom he deals are generally bankrupt,—that is to say, there is nothing to be got from their society which can compensate either for its boredom, annoyance and disagreeableness, or for the self-denial which it renders necessary. Accordingly, most society is so constituted as to offer a good profit to anyone who will exchange it for solitude. Nor
”
”
Arthur Schopenhauer (The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims)
“
Karma operates not so much as some external credit-and-debit ledger but more as an energy, a charge that grows over time. This is how even small acts of generosity, especially when motivated by the best intention, can become causes for much greater wealth in the future.
”
”
David Michie (The Dalai Lama's Cat)
“
Steve embraced the marketing adage that every single moment a consumer encounters a brand—whether as a buyer, a user, a store visitor, a passerby seeing a billboard, or someone simply watching an ad on TV—is an experience that adds either credits or debits to the brand’s “account” in his imagination.
”
”
Brent Schlender (Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader)
“
For every transaction, a journal entry must be recorded that includes both a debit and a credit. Debits increase asset accounts and decrease equity and liability accounts. Credits decrease asset accounts and increase equity and liability accounts. Debits increase expense accounts, while credits increase revenue accounts.
”
”
Mike Piper (Accounting Made Simple: Accounting Explained in 100 Pages or Less)
“
One day while I was apologizing to Serennah for not having the money to pay for something that she needed, she pointed out that our lack of finances has kept us humble. We do not have any high-maintenance spoiled brats in this household. We have never missed a meal; some of those blessed meals have consisted of beans and rice (nutritionally okay but harder for Kip to swallow), but we were still thankful. I told our kids that if you have never had your debit card denied while trying to make a purchase, you have not lived! I was joking at the time, but as I thought about it some more, I agreed with Serennah. These humbling moments keep us from getting too proud.
”
”
Mona Lisa Harding (The Brainy Bunch: The Harding Family's Method to College Ready by Age Twelve)
“
Live as if the best day is today; plan as if the best day was yesterday.
”
”
Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma (Debit Credit of Life: from the good books of accounts)
“
The present value of your presence to your loved ones in need is higher than the future value of your promises.
”
”
Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma (Debit Credit of Life: from the good books of accounts)
“
Don’t just exist, live; explore, enjoy, repeat.
”
”
Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma (Debit Credit of Life: from the good books of accounts)
“
Be with them who need you the most, for the presence is the best present.
”
”
Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma (Debit Credit of Life: from the good books of accounts)
“
Be a limited edition of yourself; for elusive is valued.
”
”
Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma (Debit Credit of Life: from the good books of accounts)
“
I know what is wrong. You havn't decided what you want.' She'd underlined this many times. 'Terribly important to draw up a balance sheet every now and then, debits and credits. Decide what's important, what's worth fighting for. Don't drift, ever. Decide then act. If you fail well at least you tried. Don't know what you want so can't advise you how to get it.
”
”
Lynne Reid Banks (The L-Shaped Room (Jane Graham, #1))
“
My twenties and thirties were contradictory decades, years when I eliminated conditions and truths that went against my grain. The value in this conservative era was that it safeguarded me from fatal character debits early in life. It was a time when I was often more concerned with not running red lights than I was with investing in the greenlights. I did what I wanted, I learned to live. I survived. My forties were a much more affirming decade, years when I started to play offense with truths I had learned and put them into action. An era where I doubled down on what fed me. The value of this liberal age was that it illuminated my most life-endorsing character assets. It was a time when I not only cruised through more greenlights because I had eliminated more red and yellow ones, but a time when I created more greenlights to travel through. A time when past reds and yellows finally turned green, as old hardships revealed themselves as good fortune, a time when the greenlights beamed brighter because I gave them more power to shine. I did what I needed, I lived to learn. I thrived. As I approach the next chapter of truths to cross, the only thing I know for sure is that I will recalibrate again,
”
”
Matthew McConaughey (Greenlights)
“
To track your money, write down or digitally capture every dollar you spend for one month. Include everything, from your $1,800 mortgage payment to the $4 coffee you grabbed on your way into work. Here, savings counts as an expense, so remember to include any money you put into a savings or retirement account (unless it was taken out of your paycheck—don’t include that). Record each expense regardless of whether you pay by cash, check, debit or credit card, automatic payment, or online transfer.
”
”
Michele Cagan (Budgeting 101: From Getting Out of Debt and Tracking Expenses to Setting Financial Goals and Building Your Savings, Your Essential Guide to Budgeting (Adams 101 Series))
“
Social networks including Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest took a step closer to offering ecommerce on their own platforms this week, as the battle to win over retailers hots up. Facebook announced on Thursday it is trialling a “buy” button to allow people to purchase a product without ever leaving the social network’s app. The initial test, with a handful of small and medium-sized businesses in the US, could lead to more ecommerce companies buying adverts on the network. It could also allow Facebook to compile payment information and encourage people to make more transactions via the platform as it would save them typing in card numbers on smartphones. But the social network said no credit or debit card details will be shared with other advertisers. Twitter acquired CardSpring, a payments infrastructure company, this week for an undisclosed price as part of plans to feature more ecommerce around live events or, as it puts it, “in-the-moment commerce experiences”. CardSpring connects payment details with loyalty cards and coupons for transactions online and in stores. The home of the 140-character message hired Nathan Hubbard, former chief executive of Ticketmaster, last year to work on creating an ecommerce product. It has since worked with Amazon, to allow people to add things to their online basket by tweeting, and with Starbucks to encourage people to tweet to buy a coffee for a friend.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Look,” she told me one day in a Millsport coffeehouse. “Shopping—actual, physical shopping—could have been phased out centuries ago if they’d wanted it that way.” “They who?” “People. Society.” She waved a hand impatiently. “Whoever. They had the capacity back then. Mail order, virtual supermarkets, automated debiting systems. It could have been done and it never happened. What does that tell you?” At twenty-two years old, a Marine Corps grunt via the street gangs of Newpest, it told me nothing. Carlyle took in my blank look and sighed. “It tells you that people like shopping. That it satisfies a basic, acquisitive need at a genetic level. Something we inherited from our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Oh, you’ve got automated convenience shopping for basic household items, mechanical food distribution systems for the marginalized poor. But you’ve also got a massive proliferation of commercial hives and speciality markets in food and crafts that people physically have to go to. Now why would they do that, if they didn’t enjoy it?” I probably shrugged, maintaining my youthful cool. “Shopping is physical interaction, exercise of decision-making capacity, sating of the desire to acquire, and an impulse to more acquisition, a scouting urge. It’s so basically fucking human when you think about it. You’ve got to learn to love it, Tak. I mean you can cross the whole archipelago on a hover; you never even need to get wet. But that doesn’t take the basic pleasure out of swimming, does it? Learn to shop well, Tak. Get flexible. Enjoy the uncertainty.
”
”
Richard K. Morgan (Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs, #1))