The Long Now.

I'm reading the Thursday Next books by Jasper Fforde and they are basically the best things in the history of ever. I just got to the end of Thursday Next: A First Among Sequels, and Thursday (the protagonist) has just undergone an arduous battle to restore time in the present, because the ChronoGuard is mining time from the present in order to feed their time travels. As a result, the whole of society is focused on the Short Now, and attention spans are getting shorter by the minute. Nobody is reading books anymore and there is talk of turning beloved classics into reality shows (literally) by rewriting the stories at their core. (This is possible in BookWorld, you see).

Anyway, Thursday is victorious (of course), and her son Friday (the possibility of him, anyway), a top-ranking member of the ChronoGuard who actually was key in stopping the mining of time so that the Long Now could be restored, says this to her:

"Keep people reading books, Mum; it helps to reinforce and strengthen the indefinable moment that anchors us in the here-and-now. Strive for the Long Now. It's the only thing that will save us."

Strive for the Long Now. It's the only thing that will save us. Yes. I adore these books.