“It seems to me you’re nothing more than a miserable misanthrope.”
“I’m not a misanthrope. It’s just that all the people I love are dead, and I hate all the living.”
“No, nope, I’m pretty sure that makes you a misanthrope, if not technically, at least in practice. What good is it saying you love people if all the people you say you love can never annoy you or have bad breath or accidentally break your favorite mug? If your love only exists for people in your imagination, for memory is only a continent in the world of the mind, then your love is only an imaginary love.”
“Go on blabbering. You’re in love with your own voice. I did love once, and those I love are dead. I wish I had died with them. I did. I think I did. The people that killed them, they’re alive, in that city of people you want me to love. No. There is only hate left, but it’s a hate borne from true love, deeper and richer. I’m not a misanthrope except that I still love the dead.”
“Well, I can’t fault you for loving them, whoever they were, but there’ll be a lot more dead people, a lot more angry people, a lot of new miserable misanthropes like you, angry and hurt and mourning the dead. Tell me, do you love yourself? Do you love yourself so much you want more of you in the world? More people dead like you?”
Tale Told 