In a liquid modern life there are no permanent bonds, and any that we take up for a time must be tied loosely so that they can be untied again, as quickly and as effortlessly as possible, when circumstances change - as they surely will in our liquid modern society, over and over again.

It struck him that the true characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness.

Our modern society - especially in the West, and especially now - reveres youth.

People with Books. What, in 2007, could be more incongruous than that? It makes me want to laugh."

[Afterword]

...it seemed a part of her life, to step from the ancient to the modern, back and forth. She felt rather sorry for those who knew only one and not the other. It was better, she thought, to be able to select from the whole menu of human achievements than to be bound within one narrow range.

We live in a society where pizza takes shorter time to reach your house compared to the police, fire brigade, or ambulance.