Nguyễn Bình

“What comforted me was the prospect of oblivion after death. The thought of an after-life frightened and fatigued me. I had never been able to adapt myself to the world in which I was now living. Of what use would another world be to me ? I felt that this world had not been made for me but for a tribe of brazen, money-grubbing, blustering louts, sellers of conscience, hungry of eye and heart—for people, in fact, who had been created in its own likeness and who fawned and grovelled before the mighty of earth and heaven as the hungry dog outside the butcher’s shop wagged his tail in the hope of receiving a fragment of offal. The thought of an after-life frightened and fatigued me. No, I had no desire to see all these loathsome worlds peopled with repulsive faces. Was God such a parvenu that He insisted on my looking over His collection of worlds ? I must speak as I think. If I had to go through another life, then I hoped that my mind and senses would be numb. In that event I could exist without effort and weariness. I would live my life in the shadow of the columns of some lingam temple. I would retire into some corner where the light of the sun would never strike my eyes and the words of men and the noise of life never grate upon my ears.”
― Sadegh Hedayat, The Blind Owl

“Here, some might think that my dedication to work reflects a desire to cling to life, or a love for life despite the occupation’s attempts to destroy it, or the insistence that we have on this earth what makes life worth living. Well, I certainly cannot speak for anyone else, but in my case it’s rather that I am unable to evaluate situations rationally, and I don’t know what should or should not be done.”
― Adania Shibli, Minor Detail

“Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.”
― James Joyce, The Dead

“They did not believe death was accidental - life might be, but death was deliberate.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula