“Living and seizing to live are imaginary solutions. Existence lies elsewhere.”
“Sexton: I think the whole world's gone mad.
Death: Uh-uh. It's always like this. You probably just don't get out enough.”
“That’s what you were trying to say, isn’t it? I mean, I think … mostly we’re too busy living to stop and notice we’re alive. But that sometimes we do. And that that makes the rest of it matter.”
“Can I ask a stupid question?"
"Sure. Ask away."
"It's sort of more than one question. But... Look, um... Why do we hurt? Why do we die? Why isn't life good all the time? Why isn't it fair?"
"Those aren't stupid questions, Hazel. For some people they're the only questions that matter."
"Does that mean you won't answer them?"
"Sure, I'll answer. But it's kind of a big subject, and it's got lots of answers, and the answers don't really mean anything-- They aren't stupid questions but they could just as well be 'When is purple?' or 'Why does Thursday?', if you see what I mean..."
"Not really."
"Well, I think some of it is probably contrasts. Light and Shadow. If you never had the bad times, how would you know you had the good times? But some of it is just: If you're going to be Human, then there are a whole load of things that come with it. Eyes, a Heart, Days and Life.
It's the moments that illuminate it, though. The times you don't see when you're having them... They make the rest of it matter.”
“out of nowhere, into the here”
“To others, the universe seems decent because decent people have gelded eyes. That is why they fear lewdness. They are never frightened by the crowing of a rooster or when strolling under a starry heaven. In general, people savor the "pleasures of the flesh" only on condition that they be insipid.
But as of then, no doubt existed for me: I did not care for what is known as "pleasures of the flesh" because they really are insipid; I cared only for what is classified as "dirty." On the other hand, I was not even satisfied with the usual debauchery, because the only thing it dirties is debauchery itself, while, in some way or other, anything sublime and perfectly pure is left intact by it. My kind of debauchery soils not only my body and my thoughts, but also anything I may conceive in its course, that is to say, the vast starry universe, which merely serves as a backdrop.”
“She was forced to consider the startling fact that the love of her life might not actually be someone with whom she could spend a lifetime.”
“Isn’t it strange how we always seem to remember the trivial things from our daily lives... yet we so often forget the most important ones?”
“Too bad in the Agency’s eyes a person was only truly the hero when they were the villain.”
“A picture postcard is a symptom of loneliness.”
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