“The megacities, like cancer, have appeared with their
great extremes of poverty and wealth, their isolation
from what was called the natural world with its rivers,
forests, silent dawns and nights. The new populations
will live in hives of concrete on a diet of film, television
and the Internet. We are what we eat.
We are also what we see and hear.
And we are in the midst of our one and only life.”
– James Salter, from his essay,
Once Upon a Time, Literature. Now What?