Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.
Donna TarttThat life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesnโt mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if weโre not always so glad to be here, itโs our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesnโt touch.
Donna TarttFrom the window, above the clatter of pots and the slamming of cabinets, Francis was singing, as though it was the happiest song in the world: 'We are the little black sheep who have gone astray . . . Baa baa baa . . . Gentlemen songsters off on a spree . . . Doomed from here to eternity . . .
Donna Tartt