I believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer any difference between developing the habit of pretending to believe and developing the habit of believing.

Perhaps I have lived my life as if it was within the pages of this novel? If I do ascribe to a metanarraive, despite my Nietzschean education, it is this powerful novel: a handbook for the cynically perplexed. I wasn't sure of anything and reading this confirmed it. I've grown to love how the scenes parallel one another, how the publishing coterie embody the types they deride. I love how life obstructs all the grandeur, all the purity and the nutters accept it all as gospel.