Philip

“What makes us the most normal," said Reiko, "is knowing that we're not normal.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s 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 doesn’t touch.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“…still when I lost her, I lost sight of any landmark that might have led me someplace happier, to some more populated or congenial life…”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“What was venerated as style was nothing more than an imperfection or flaw that revealed the guilty hand.”
― Orhan Pamuk