It's funny, but thinking back on it now, I realize that this particular point in time, as I stood there blinking in the deserted hall, was the one point at which I might have chosen to do something very much different from what I actually did. But of course I didn't see this crucial moment for what it actually was; I suppose we never do. Instead, I only yawned, and shook myself from the momentary daze that had come upon me, and went on my way down the stairs.
Donna TarttTo understand the world at all, sometimes you could only focus on a tiny bit of it, look very hard at what was close to hand and make it stand in for the whole.
Donna TarttSometimes you can do all the right things and not succeed. And that's a hard lesson of reality.
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 Tartt