"Whatever pretended causes we may blame our afflictions upon, it is often nothing but self-interest and vanity that produce them."

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But a few choosing to venture deeper into the painful corridors of their affliction, found after a while that they could now grind and polish ever more exotic surfaces, hyperboloidial and even stranger, eventually including what we must term ‘imaginary’ shapes (which some preferred to term invisible).

— Thomas Pynchon