“ Anders began. He looked around at the masses of masonry, the convention of streets cutting through the architectural piles. "Human life," he said, "is a series of conventions. When you look at a girl, you're supposed to see—a pattern, not the underlying formlessness.""That's true," the voice agreed, but with a shade of doubt."Basically, there is no form. Man produces gestalts, and cuts form out of the plethora of nothingness. It's like looking at a set of lines and saying that they represent a figure. We look at a mass of material, extract it from the background and say it's a man. ”
Robert Sheckley
Summary
Quotes from Warm (Robert Sheckley)
“ Anders resisted the urge to scratch his head, for fear of disarranging his carefully combed hair. What he had seen wasn't so strange. Everyone sees one or two things in his life that make him doubt his normality, doubt sanity, doubt his very existence. For a moment the orderly Universe is disarranged and the fabric of belief is ripped. ”
“ Gestalts, sifted out of the vast, unbearable real world."Where's Judy?" a discontinuous lump of flesh asked him. This particular lump possessed enough nervous mannerisms to convince the other lumps of his reality. He wore a loud tie as further evidence."She's sick," Anders said. The flesh quivered into an instant sympathy. Lines of formal mirth shifted to formal woe."Hope it isn't anything serious," the vocal flesh remarked."You're warmer," the voice said to Anders.Anders looked at the object in front of him."She hasn't long to live," he stated.The flesh quivered. ”
