Bright ideas explode, unfortunately igniting, of damp squibs, some mediocre ones, like the need for illustrations, fizzling in the arena of relationships, and, when the too close walls come back into focus and the sitting-room (i.e., of the semi-detached) is restored, falling away, in the end, fading after a couple of blinks, leaving only the strange, compelling aftertaste of a satiric saltpetre on the tongue.
– Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, Basic Books, 1979
