Цитата из книги «A Hero of our time / Герой нашего времени. Книга для чтения на английском языке»

“You will have noticed, my dear doctor,” said I, “that without fools the world would be very boring… Now here we are, two intelligent people. We know in advance that it’s possible to argue about everything endlessly, and so we don’t argue. We each know nearly all the other’s innermost thoughts. A single word tells us a whole story, and we see the kernel of each of our thoughts through a triple husk: Sad things strike us as funny, funny things as sad, and generally speaking, if you want to know, we are rather indifferent to everything except ourselves. Hence there can be no exchange of emotions and ideas between us. We know all we want to know about each other and don’t wish to know more. That leaves only one thing to talk about: the latest news. Haven’t you any news to tell me?”