The truth is we never stop being children, terrible children covered in sores and knotty veins and tumors and age spots, but ultimately children, in other words we never stop clinging to life because we are life.

You run risks. That's the plain truth. You run risks and, even in the most unlikely places, you are subject to destiny's whims.

In the current socio-political climate, he said to himself, committing suicide is absurd and redundant. Better to become an undercover poet.

…I realized my happiness was artificial. I felt happy because I saw the others were happy and because I knew I should feel happy, but I wasn't really happy.

If life is misery, why do we endure it?

In some lost fold of the past, we wanted to be lions and we're no more than castrated cats

So everything lets us down, including curiosity and honesty and what we love best. Yes, said the voice, but cheer up, it's fun in the end.