You see, when you're middle class, you have to live with the fact that history will ignore you. You have to live with the fact that history can never champion your causes and that history will never feel sorry for you. It is the price that is paid for day-to-day comfort and silence. And because of this price, all happinesses are sterile; all sadnesses go unpitied.

All events became omens; I lost the ability to take anything literally.

There's nothing at the center of what we do...No center. It doesn't exist. All of us-look at our lives: We have an acceptable level of affluence. We have entertainment. We have a relative freedom from fear. But there's nothing else.

Why do most of us make such boring choices for the stories of our lives?

We are changed souls; we don't look at things the same way anymore. For there was a time when we expected the worst. But then the worst happened, did it not? And so we will never be surprised again.

Besides, animals don’t even have time. Only humans have time. It’s what makes us different.

Compromise is said to be the way of the world and yet I find myself feeling sick trying to accept what it has done to me.