"NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization."

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We are … the un-proud non-possessors of objects whose chief substance is that of the transient symbol. Our Puritan fear of the love of things turns out to have been groundless after all, for we do not love things or even possess them: they pass through our lives as barium passes through the digestive tract, unassimilated, their function merely to flash signals along the way.

— Ralph Caplan