[Severian]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

that short, sweet, funny, wise bit about resignation to universal suffering and the need for compassion/solidarity is immediately followed by this bit of smartass hilarity:

Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But being paid,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!

Ursella K. Leguin called Gene Wolf the Melville of fringe speculative literary fiction.