Somewhere a man wastes away his life, covered in coal dust, in the stifling depths of a mine; another man rests warmly, clothed in alpaca, buried in a good book in an armchair, without ever thinking whence or how this armchair, this book, this alpaca, this warmth reach him. National Socialism wanted every German, in the future, to be able to have his modest share of the good things in life; but within the limitations of the Reich, this had turned out to be impossible; so now we were taking these things from others.

— The Kindly Ones, Jonathan Littell

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“What profit of commerce in, let us say, the Year 1700 could have foreseen a time when commoners consume tea by the bucket and sugar by the sack? What subject of William & Mary could have predicted the “need” of today’s middling multitudes for cotton sheets, coffee & chocolate? Human requisites are prone to fashion; and, as clamoring new needs replace old ones, the face of the world changes…”

— The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell