'Without ever exactly putting his mind to it, he's come to believe that loss is the standard trajectory. Something new appears in the world - a baby, say, or a car or a house, or an individual shows some special talent - with luck and huge expenditures of soul and effort you might keep the project stoked for a while, but eventually, ultimately, it's going down. This is a truth so brutally self-evident that he can't fathom why it's not more widely perceived, hence his contempt for the usual public shock and outrage when a particular situation goes to hell.'
Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, p.11.
