Cause and effect Quote by Thomas Pynchon
““Time of course has showed the question up in all its young illogic. We can justify any apologia simply by calling life a successive rejection of personalities. No apologia I s any more than a romance—half a fiction—in which all the successive identities are taken on and rejected by the writer as a function of linear time are treated as separate characters. The writing itself even constitutes another rejection, another “character” added to the past. So we do sell our souls: paying them away to history in little installments. It isn’t so much to pay for eyes clear enough to see past the fiction of continuity, the fiction of cause and effect, the fiction of a humanized history endowed with “reason.””
About This Quote
Source Novel: "Gravity's Rainbow", 1973
Life is a series of identities we adopt and discard, each a character in a larger narrative.
In simple terms: We constantly change selves over time.
Key Takeaway
Recognize the fluidity of identity.
Themes
identity
time
storytelling
philosophy
Mood
introspective
philosophical
Type
literary
existential
When to use this quote
- personal growth
- creative writing
- historical analysis
Key Concepts
self‑construction
historicity
fiction vs reality
Questions to Reflect On
- How do you stay authentic amid changing roles?
- What does “selling your soul to history” mean to you?
A Different Perspective
Identity may feel destabilizing, leading to existential anxiety.
![“APOLOGUE (A'POLOGUE) n.s.[.]Fable; story contrived to teach some moral truth. An apologue of Æsop is beyond a syllogism, and proverbs more powerful than demonstration.Brown’sVulgar Errours. Some men are remarked for pleasantness in raillery; others for apologues and apposite diverting…” quote by Samuel Johnson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/469/samuel-johnson-50_truth_apologue-a-pologue-n-s-fable-story-contr_794154.jpg)
