- HE WAS IN "CASINO ROYALE," "QUANTUM OF SOLACE,"

So the only solace I had was to work hard.

I think there's been a steady drumbeat of people seeking solemn and solace down here.

There can be nothing to celebrate in an unheralded, unknown existence. We cannot live quietly and be in bed by nine. We must become someone or else look on with envy and rage at those who have evaded the perils of mediocrity. We used to know almost nothing of what happened beyond our own valley or shoreline. Life went by so slowly that we were often, without appreciating how much this kept us sane, a bit bored. No bloodshed, scandal, upset or peril can occur anywhere on the planet without us hearing of it in minutes and we are as a result in a state of continuous unrest and alarm, unable to set anything negative in context, unsure of how to evaluate our species, terrified to trust or speak to a stranger, constantly feeling that we are leading the wrong lives. We know everything except the less perceptible things that really matter. Our attention is drawn only to our discords, our spitefulness and our cruelty. We have been stripped of opportunities to contemplate older, slower currents, to draw inspiration from dawn, the murmurings of doves or robins or the barks of ancient trees that speak of time measured in centuries. We have been sold the idea that the one solution to our loneliness lies in romantic love. We therefore search with frantic abandon in the lonely, concrete canyons of our modern megalopolises for one very special being who can be everything to us, best friend, sexual partner, playmate, kindergarten teacher, cook, chauffeur and then, when inevitably we cannot find them, we perceive ourselves as having been uniquely cursed. We misunderstand the generality of the problem and miss the solace available in the less febrile and less prestigious realm of friendship. In distributing our needs more equitably among a whole community, none of whose members need to answer to the whole of anyone's longings, we have been rendered exceptionally lonely by the unwittingly cruel notion of a soulmate. We could, back then, stand away from our work and see something substantial and solid that we had made, a chair, some horseshoes, a house. We now occupy ourselves on tasks that have been infinitely subdivided and thereby lost much of their wider logic. We carry professional titles like logistics controller, automation specialist or human resource manager that show us up as minute cogs in endlessly complicated engines.

nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting

We have lost the joy of the household and the solace of our old age.

Skyfall, the overrated movie that thrilled audiences worldwide only because it was way better than Quantum of Solace.

And women gave many temperance lectures featuring horror stories of men who, rather than seeking refuge from the harsh competition of the market economy and the loving embrace of their homes, found solace at the bottom of a glass or at the end of a beer hose.

Tumbling down forever, will I ever find any solace?

The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.