Book: The Martian Chronicles. Page 1

Life was now good and needed no arguments.

Past, Future - what does it matter, if only we both lived, because what will come after us, will still come - tomorrow or in ten thousand years.

Like I was kept for two days in the rain without an umbrella or raincoat. I'm soaked to the skin impressions...

Any sane person wants to take his feet from the Ground.

The animal tries to find out what the meaning of life. It lives. It lives. For him the answer lies in life itself, her joy and delight.

... science is ultimately the study miracle, which we can't explain, and art is an interpretation of this miracle. They never let science crush the aesthetic and the beautiful. It's all a matter of degree.

They knew how to live with nature in harmony, in harmony. Do not climb over backwards to make a distinction between man and animal. The mistake we made when Darwin showed up. After all, what we had: first was delighted, hastened to enclose it in his arms and him and Huxley and Freud. And then we discovered that Darwin did not agree with our religion. Anyway, we thought so. But it's stupid! We tried to budge Darwin and Huxley and Freud. They didn't budge. Then we began to destroy religion. And succeeded perfectly. Lost faith and began to puzzle over the meaning of life. If art is just an expression of unsatisfied passions, if religion is a delusion, then what are we living for? Faith he found the answer. But with the advent of Darwin and Freud it out. How was the human race lost, and left.

Americans art is always a special case, his place in the room eccentric son upstairs. The others accept him, so to speak, Sunday doses, some mixed with religion.

When you something vtemyashit head, you begin to lie to yourself. Saying everybody else is wrong and you're right.

- Commander, maybe we have a phenomenon which was first prove the existence of God!
Believers enough without such proof, Mr. Hinkston...

Ustrasheniya the word "politics" (which in the end in the most reactionary circles has become synonymous with "communism", Yes, Yes, and for the mere use of the word could pay with their lives!), goaded on all sides - here tightened the nut, it will spin the bolt out poke, stab, out, art and literature were soon like a great toffee that was twisted, squeezed, crushed, tied in a knot, was tossed about until, until it lost all elasticity and every taste. And then broke off the cameras, plunged into the darkness of the theatres, and the mighty Niagara of printed materials has become emasculated in the stream of "clean" material. Believe me, the concept of "departure from reality" also fell into the category of seditious!

Tonight the air smelled of Time. He smiled, mentally assessing his fiction. Not a bad idea. But really: what did Time smell like? Dust, for hours, man. And if you think about it - Time that is - at the hearing? It looked like water running in a dark cave, like calling for votes, like the rustle of the earth, that pours on the lid of an empty box, like rain. Let's go even further, ask yourself, how does the Time? It looked like snow dropping silently into a black room or a vintage silent film, in which a hundred billion faces, as Christmas balls, falling down, down into nothing. That is what smells of the Time and that's what it looked and sounded.

- What are you looking at, dad?
I was looking for earthly logic, reasonable governance, peace and responsibility.
And as he saw?
- No. Not found. They are no more on Earth. And, perhaps, never will be. We may have just deceived themselves and they do not been.

Earth in the black sky suddenly transformed. She ignited. Part of her drive suddenly disintegrated into millions of particles scattered like a huge mosaic. A minute Earth glowed an eerie ragged flame, an increase in size three times, then cringed.
- What was it? Sam looked at the green fire in the sky.
Earth replied Elmo, pinning his arms to his chest.